The Shinehill Valley Tournament
by Wildwulf
Summary: It's Spring vacation and Nicole informs the other kids that there's a snowboarding tournament coming up in a vacation resort called Shinehill Valley, with as grand prize 150.000 G. But not only that, a new kid enters the scene as well! How will things go?
1. Chapter 1: A New Face Arrives!

PLEASE READ THIS FIRST: This fanfiction features a fancharacter of my own I created for this story. It will revolve alot of times around him, but there are enough official character interaction parts to balance it out. The fancharacter's name is Rick Pellegrino, a 11-year old young boy from the Netherlands who picked up Snowboarding as a hobby in order to get more active and make some friends, and his father and mother just moved to Snow Town with him, his father owning a local store, and his mother having a job as a script writer currently. He has a usual very friendly and helpful attitide, but can get carried away by things of his interests, and when truly angered he means buisness. He has seen alot of Pamela Rasteri's movies and has developed a secret crush on her, but he doesn't know yet about her attending the same school as where's he going now...

I hope you'll enjoy this fanfiction and many thanks for reading this first.

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It was a sunny morning as Linda and Nancy were chatting up while they were on their way to school in the morning. Linda, not wanting to be brought to school by limousine on the last day before spring vacation, took the occasion to snowboard with her best friend to school, a fresh change of the usual routine, as she liked to call it.

'So, did you do anything special last night, Nancy?' Linda asked as they went down the still quiet streets at a steady pace.

'Nothing special, I just continued to work onto today's book report, I had to read the last chapter a bit quickly through as my parents wanted me to help a bi---*poof!*

With that, a snowball plowed against the back of Linda's head, letting out a quick shriek as she wiped the cold snow out of her hair. 'What the?!'

Just then, from the sidelines of the streets a familiar laughing was heard as 2 boys also went downhills towards the school on their snowboards.

'Hey, Linda! I thought your hot head could chill off a bit!' Slash yelled as he and Jam started to speed up towards the direction of the school.

'GRRR!!! COME BACK HERE YOU TWO!!' Linda shouted as her face turned red and she also increased her speed shaking her fist. Nancy just sighed and slightly increased her own speed to catch up.

Indeed it was the last day of school before spring vacation would kick in for a whole 2 weeks. After Christmas and New Year Celebration the kids all went back to their usual routine and everything was still going good. Of course a few new people moved into town, but it was still the same old Snow Town the residents loved.

As Slash and Jam placed their snowboards at the storage room where snowboards and other stuff would be placed until the end of the school day, they quickly runned to the classroom as they heard Linda approaching with fury. 'Come on, quickly!' Slash shouted as he and Jam ran down the filling class room and went to their places. Linda barged in a few seconds later, seeing the boys sitting all whistling at their desks, but she saw that Mrs. Steeder also was in the classroom, and thus quickly dismissed her revenge thoughts for now and walked to her desk, giving the 2 boys a quick glare and they just grinning in response.

Eventually the rest also made their way in amongst them Nancy, Wendy, Tommy and Ruby, and then English class began.

As the rest of the class all quietly sat down trying to read the required paragraphs of their books for the first few 10 minutes, a pointy-nosed boy with messy brown hair, small glasses wearing black jeans and a blue shirt came in unnoticed by the rest of the class except Mrs. Steeder, to whom he headed to.

'Excuse me, is this class 10-A?' He asked her politely. 'Ah, yes. You must be one of the students from 10-C, whose teacher was sick today and that all of the students have to sit in individual classes for the day, right? I've been informed of your arrival already.' She pointed towards a empty desk behind Nancy. 'You can sit there, behind that blonde girl. Please take a English book from the shelf and go to paragraph 12.'

The boy nodded and headed towards his appointed desk after he grabbed a English book and sat down behind Nancy, just going along with the reading until 20 minutes later, reading session was over and Mrs. Steeder asked for attention.

'Dear class, before we start answering questions, I'd like to inform that for today in connection with a teacher being sick, a boy from another classroom will join us for the day. Would you like to tell us your name?' She looked at him as did the rest of the class, to which the boy just got a bit red in the face from all the faces looking at him, and tried to respond.

'Oh! Uh... my-my name's Rick Pellegrino, nice to meet you all.' He waved a bit before quickly hiding behind his book again to avoid any more attention, and the class went on. Though Jam muttered something in himself: 'Odd, but a friendly guy.'

As the bell ringed for lunchtime, the kids all went to the cafeteria where they got their lunch trays loaded with spinach, some ham sandwiches and a banana, and sat down in a group, Slash, Jam, Tommy, Linda, Nancy and Wendy sitting all on one lunch table to talk about their plans for the vacation. Though they didn't discuss much, or somebody approached them. It was that Rick guy.

'Um, hi there. Sorry if I disturb you all in something important, but the other lunch tables seem all occupied, can I sit with you guys, if that's okay?' The boy asked a bit shyly.

'Sure!' Nancy replied. Rick sat down and wanted to introduce himself a bit more properly. 'I'm sorry if I came across really awkward back there in class. I'm not used to so many people looking at me.' He scratched a bit behind his head. 'But it's nice to meet you all. The name's Rick Pellegrino, I've just moved over here from The Netherlands about 2 weeks ago.'

'Well, nice to meet you, Rick.' Wendy smiled to him. 'My name's Wendy Lane, I've been into Snow Town not so long myself either, but it's a really nice place.' Nancy then also greeted Rick. 'Nice to meet you as well. I'm Nancy Neil! This here's Lin...da...' As she turned her head around, she saw that Linda was bickering with Slash and Jam over what happened in the morning, not really paying attention to Rick.

*sigh* Nancy continued their intro's for Rick. 'That's Linda Maltinie, she's my best friend, but also slightly hot-tempered as you can see.' She felt slightly nervous as their argument heated up. 'Though don't let that fool you, she's really friendly once you get to know her better. Just don't try to make her mad.'

'I'll definetly keep that in mind!' Rick tried to joke a bit. Nancy then pointed towards the 2 boys opposite of Linda. 'Those are Slash and Jam, the one on the left with the spiky hair's Slash, and the dark-skinned one Jam. They're always up to cause some mischief around here sometimes and are very confident of themselves, but outside of that they're pretty nice guys and best friends with each other.'

Rick then looked towards the chubby boy sitting next to Slash, who was busy eating his food. 'Oh, and who are you?' Tommy swallowed his food and smiled. 'Oh, I'm Tommy Parsy. Nice to meet you, Rick. Oh, do you want that sandwich?' He pointed at Rick's ham sandwich on the tray, to which Rick replied: 'Nah, I already had so much breakfast, you take it.' He handed it over to Tommy who immediatly began munching it away, Rick looking a bit suprised at his eating pace.

'Please don't mind Tommy on that.' Nancy informed Rick. 'He likes to eat alot, but he's a very nice boy and gets along with everybody.'

They then heard some loud voice nearby, coming from another table with a very muscular blode guy with sunglasses in a blue shirt showing off his muscles to the other kids on the table, all looking a bit uneasy.

Nancy shrugged a bit. 'That's Ruby Green. As you can see he's a very muscular kid, and he likes to brag about his appearence and muscles alot. He doesn't really hang out with us alot, but I guess he's a decent guy. Though the only times he went out to snowboard with us was on the occasions that Slash and Jam dared him to it and because of a competetion another friend of us held.'

When Nancy mentioned snowboarding, it immediatly caught Rick's attention, who then with a bit of a suprised look replied: 'Oh, you like to snowboard as well? I'm recently picking it up, plus it seems really popular around here.' Nancy smiled a bit towards Rick. 'Yeah, we like to snowboard alot. Most often it's for fun, but a few times the others like to dare each other to various races and competetions, though it's really fun to do so. Do you know about the battle races we like to do?' She asked him.

'Not so much, but I saw 2 or 3 times of other kids racing each other on courses using various items on the way while I was walking around after school.' Rick scratched his chin as he told further. 'I didn't participate in any of them yet because I'm not used so much to snowboarding yet, but I'd really like to experience it.'

Though his conversation with Nancy was suddenly cut off as Slash and Linda were then practically shouting to each other which caught the whole table's attention. 'HAH! I bet you can't even win on a course like Rookie Mountain without getting your butt hit with a weapon, Linda!' Slash remarked at her while grinning.

'OOOH, you're think you're so perfect yourself, Slash?!' Linda growled back. 'How about we'll hold a race on Rookie Mountain to see who's going to win there flawlessly after school?'

'You betcha!' Slash looked with a challenging look towards Linda. Jam looked with a grinning smile towards Linda, adding: 'You can count me in as well, I need some practice on my moves, AND I can get to throw more stuff at you, Linda!' She then glared towards Jam as well. 'Fine, I'll bury you in a heap of snow there!'

Overhearing what they just said, Nancy then tapped Linda on the shoulder. 'Oh, Linda?' She turned her head to Nancy and responded with a more friendly attitude: 'What is it, Nancy?' She then pointed to Rick sitting next to her. 'Rick likes to snowboard too. Could he possibly participate in the race as well to see how it goes on in there? He's never been in one of them before.' Rick's face turned to a awkward one, a bit nervously trying to reject it. 'Wha-what? Me joining in, this afternoon already?!' Wendy who was overhearing the entire thing while eating, tried to encourage Rick. 'Come on, Rick! You said yourself you wanted to experience it, and now's your chance! Besides, Rookie Mountain is a good place for beginners from what I've heard and experienced myself with the others when I raced there.'

Rick eased down and thought about it briefly. It would be a good way to get to know the other kids, especially after they acted so nice to him, plus it would be good practice for him. 'Okay, I'll do it. Can I join in as well?' Rick asked politely to Linda. 'OK, sure. Would give us the traditional 4-people race anyway.' Linda replied. 'Though don't expect me to go easy on you just because you're new!' She added to it.

And with that, the bell rang and the rest were to go back to their classes again, Rick pondering if he made the best choice...


	2. Chapter 2: Rookie's First Race

The rest of the school day proceeded fine, and after the bell rang for the end of the school, Mrs. Steeder smiled and took her briefcase. 'School's over. Have a nice vacation, class. Be sure to leave your desks behind properly. Before she walked away for one last staff meeting.

The majority of the class was about to leave, but Linda asked for the attention of Slash and the others. 'May I have your attention, everybody? I've decided to hold the race around 3:30, a half hour from now. Be sure to bring along your snowboards, and feel free to watch if you want to!' She then looked at Slash. 'I hope you're prepared to taste defeat, Slash!' She taunted him with a snobby laugh before cleaning up her own desk.

The rest of the group decided to watch it, being curious how this new Rick kid would perform, but then Ruby approached them.

'Hey, I've heard this new kid here's gonna snowboard, his first one in a race too! I'm definetly going to be there to see how you're gonna perform, but I don't expect too much from ya!' Ruby teased Rick with a grin, him being a bit intimidated by his appearence up close, but Slash then came up to Ruby and taunted him in return: 'Hey, at least he's got the guts for it! When I challenged you for a race you came up with all kinds of excuses until you couldn't bail out anymore.'

Ruby shaked his fist and puffed to Slash. 'You little... hmph!! I'm not gonna ruin my new stylin' haircut with pummeling you, spiky!' He then stomped out the classroom and towards the exit.

Rick stood up and smiled to Slash. 'Hey, thanks for sticking up for me there, Slash.'

'No problem, but better get ready for our race!' Slash told Rick in return.

'Yep, seeya soon!' Rick waved to the rest and hurried out of the school to get his snowboarding equipment back home.

Jam also headed out for the exit, slightly nudging Slash. 'Come on, let's get to Rookie Mountain already. We can do some practice on it before the race starts if we get there quickly enough. 'Sure!' Slash responded, and runned out of the classroom along with Jam.

*A half hour later*

As the group arrived on the top of the course of Rookie Mountain, a short racing course with few slopes to stunt off, no cliffs and few sharp turns, they could just witness Slash and Jam doing some turning and stunting practice before the race started. Slash was pretty determined to not lose this race to Linda. They both headed for the lift-in and took the chairlifts up the start of the course, where they both took off their boots from their snowboards and saw the rest of the gang, except for Rick.

'Hey Linda!' Slash shouted to the rich girl as she prepared herself for the race. 'You seen that Rick guy yet?' Linda shook her head vertical and replied. 'Not yet, but he better show up within the next 3 minutes or we're gonna start without him.'

And just with that, Wendy who stood on the sidelines along with the others who didn't participate could hear footsteps in the snow approaching, and upon closer inspection, they saw it was Rick.

'Sorry to keep you waiting, guys!' Rick shouted as he hurried himself to the starting line in a faster pace, having dressed himself up in a warm old brown winter coat and a grey ushanka with the ear flaps hanging out but the top cut off to see his brown hair visible.

'What kept you waiting?' Linda questioned Rick as she stood ready on her snowboard, while Rick did the same, responding: 'I had to tell my dad about all of you guys, and it took me a bit to get my snowboarding gear.'

'Well, we're glad you could come anyway.' Jam told Rick as he put his snowboard on the ground and stood ready on it near the red starting line.'

'Same, hope you'll do good, but I'm not planning to lose from you, or Linda over there!' Slash grinned towards Linda, who looked a bit irritated back to him.

Before Wendy came near the start line to give the signal for the race, the kids all looked at each other's boards. As inexperienced as Rick was, he could make out that Linda used a Alpine Board by the sharp edges of it, and he, Slash and Jam were using a All Around board.

'OK, it's a 3-lap race, to remind you all. Are you ready?!....GO!'

As soon as Wendy shouted it, all the kids except Rick jumped off well and gained a head start, all going at a steady pace but Rick himself started at a slow pace for the first few seconds, but got on a decent speed afterwards, though he could hear Ruby laughing as he yelled: 'Don't ya even know how to jump forward at the start of a race?!' Rick ignored him and continued forward in last.

Slash and Jam were both trying to get to the first blue item box that stood in the center of the the slight left arch, but Linda with her speedy board managed to get past the 2 boys and went through it, the box then disappearing, nabbing herself a rock which she kept for the time being as she went forward. Slash and Jam had to bail out on the blue item before it could reappear and continued on. Linda also went through the red shot box at the first sharp turn to the right, which gave her a bunch of freeze shots, also keeping it for later. Slash went a little faster than Jam and got in time for his own to grab a few bombs, and continued on.

In the meantime, Rick managed to steer himself at the slight left arch and went through the blue item box, feeling in his left pocket that he got a pan. 'Ah, I can use this to temporarily stun the other racers...' He thought in himself as he remembered it from watching a few races from the other kids. He waited with using it putting it back in his pocket, and headed straight, also getting the red shot box and felt in his other right pocket something cold: Snowman heads. 'Oh, if I remember correctly, this is to immobilize other people who get hit so they can't move around.'

Though he then saw a sharp turn to the right, and barely managed to steer himself without crashing due to using the edge hill slope to his advantage, and still stood on both his feet, though he could see the others about to make a jump...

Linda did a vertical spin, Slash approaching near her with a horizontal flip, and Jam pulled off one of his special stunts, the Spinning Jam, as he flipped himself backwards vertically twice, landing with style and continued on, quickly looking back being curious how that Rick could perform a trick. To his disappointment however, when Rick went off the slope he didn't dare to jump at all, and simply landed without doing anything. Jam shrugged a bit and continued on.

After turning the sharp right curve after a minor left arch, Linda came to the second stunting slope, and attempted another vertical spin trick, but Slash who was approaching right behind her grinned, took his chance to aim, and tossed a bomb towards her missing out on the stunt, but used the steep side of the slope to gain some extra speed, and he saw as right as Linda landed, the bomb hitted her before she could do anything, and was blown upwards a bit before plowing into the snow. Grumbling, she stood up and jumped forward to try and chase Slash, who bolted for the lift-in. Jam approached behind Linda as she managed to get to lift-in in second, but he managed to get a Invisibility item at the blue box before the lift-in, coming in 3rd. Rick took a few seconds longer to come by as it took him quite some effort to navigate the sharp right turn, plus he fell off balance from turning too sharply which he wasn't used to, but as he saw Jam looking at him briefly while going up in the chairlift, Rick attempted to do a few board grabs at least this time to show he does have something, and headed straight for the lift-in as well, managing to brake off decently and hopped on the chairlift still in last.

In the 2nd lap, Slash went right for the blue item box near the start, and took the contents of the box which was a fan this time around, a good thing in his position and immediatly used it. Linda who saw Slash in the near distance, approached the blue item box as well in hopes of getting something good to catch up to him, forgetting about the rock, getting a Ghost this time around which she immediatly used, and the ghost vanished and appeared before Slash, who upon sight slowed down to normal speed even with the fan in use because it gave him the creeps.

Rick who also landed back on foot after Jam, decided to use the Pan, throwing it upwards which then multiplied into 3, and magically appeared above the others. Linda who was busy with attempting a stunt in mid-air got one on her head and fell down with her face once more in the snow, but managed to recover quickly. Slash got one on his way down the sharp right turn, and lost his fan in the process, and tried to recover in time from the hit as well, as the ghost then disappeared. Unfortunatly, Linda came close and Slash tried to jump to gain some speed, but she already throwed a freeze shot in his direction, which froze him on impact, and moved on. Jam used the invisibility item just in time to avoid getting hit by the pan, and focussing on getting some speed in, managed to catch up to Slash who then broke out of the ice and climbed back on his board. Rick also managed to come closer, avoiding the boxes in favor of trying to take the inside parts of the turns to try and catch up, and this time took less time navigating the sharp right turn and jumped off the slope to get some speed in as he saw he was close to both Jam and Slash.

Linda who still was in the lead near the finish did a diagonal flip trick this time and landed with grace as she took the blue box's content before heading to the lift-in, seeing it was a rock again. Taking the chairlift to the top, she saw both Slash and Jam trying to outrun each other for the lift in first, but Jam couldn't resist to try another stunt, and did a diagonal flip as well. Though Slash already took advantage of it and bolted for the blue box and the lift-in, taking a ghost with him which he immediatly used on Linda to make her slow down with chills on her spine as he went after her on the chairlift. Jam had to bolt out of the box which disappeared briefly but he also went on the chairlift after the 2. Rick came by close as this time he also took less time to navigate the other sharp right turn without falling off, and at the slope attempted a horizontal flip, and landed, though looked like he almost tripped out of balance, but managed to steer himself past the next box, and got a fan this time, as he went up the chairlift behind Jam.

It was the final lap, and Linda who was still haunted by the ghost for a few seconds, decided to drop the rock near the starting line so Slash woudn't catch up to her so easily, and moved on, getting another rock from the blue box as she moved on. Slash jumped off the chairlift, but as Linda anticipated, he tripped over the rock, though quickly recovered in mere 3 seconds after the fall, and jumped forward for some more speed, ignoring the blue box this time in favour of trying to catch up with Linda, still knowing he had 2 bombs in his pocket left. Jam who upon landing immediatly jumped forward for some decent speed got the blue box and got himself a pan, deciding to save it for later. He also got himself a pair of slapsticks from the red box before the sharp right turn.

Rick in the meantime immediatly used the fan to go faster and trying to pass up to Jam, but ignored the boxes in order to focus on cornering the turns.

As Linda speeded to the sharp turn, not stunting off the slope this time, she did notice that Slash was starting to catch up to her as she looked back that he yelled as he stunted. Though just as Rick at the same time throwed a snowman head towards Jam, before he was hit, he tossed up the pan as he was trapped under a bunch of snow while heading off the slope. Rick lost his fan and fell to the ground, but attempted to regain speed quickly. Linda who was also hit in the middle of the sharp turn got back up, but saw Slash approaching from a bit of slow speed, also hit by the pan, obviously. He threw another bomb at her, but this time Linda anticipated such a move and did a board grab on her board as she jumped, deflecting the shot and sending Slash upwards this time before he fell back in the snow, Linda letting out a snobbish laugh as she went for the slope before the finish, and dropped the rock before she attempted a special double flip stunt for a finisher. Slash who was now looking red in his face chased after Linda as he recovered, but as he approached the slope, didn't notice the other rock she dropped, and fell, rolling off the slope and landing right before the finish line, where he witnessed Linda laughing as she crossed the finish line first, him grumbling as he crossed second and waited for Jam and Rick to finish.

At the same time, Rick used the steep slope to his advantage to gain some speed after the hit, and passed Jam who just crashed against the sidelines and fell down, trying to recover, and now used to sharp cornering somewhat, took less time as he maneuvred the last sharp turn. He smiled as he approached the last slope, preparing to attempt at least one full trick to show off to Linda and Slash, but he heard something and looked back, panicking as he saw a slapstick hand coming very close to him which Jam must have fired when he recovered and was approaching him, and got hit, instead rolling off the slope, still hearing Jam do one last stunt before he crossed the finish as 3rd, and Rick finally rolling all the way down the slope and landed on his stomach by the others as dead last. The spectators already having made their way to the finish during the entire race and saw it all.


	3. Chapter 3: Raging Rivals!

'Ahahahaaha!' Linda laughed holding a hand for her mouth in a snobby manner. 'Now I think it's all obvious to us who can't win a race without getting hit alot, huh, Slash?' She looked with a victorious grin towards Slash. He stomped in the snow out of frustration, and started to bluff his way out. 'BAH, you just got lucky there, Linda! If it weren't for you to have recovered so fast from that pan near the finish, I would have won!'

Linda smirked as she saw through Slash's claims. 'Aren't you quite the persistent one to keep bluffing even after I squarely beated you!' She laughed further as they kept arguing.

Jam in the meanwhile helped Rick up on his feet, as he fell all dizzy from that last hit. 'Uwooh...' Rick groaned, but noticed he was lifted up by his hands and regained consciousness. 'Huh? Oh. Hey there, Jam was it, right? How did I do?' He asked scratching his head while looking at Jam with a bit of a embarrassed look in his face.

'Not too bad, actually!' Jam smiled a bit towards Rick. 'You do need some help on your tricks, and your turning could use some practice as well, but for a rookie you performed pretty well! Ya even caught up to me and hitted me near the end, but I'm not so easy to beat, dude!'

Rick smiled a bit as well from the compliment Jam seemed to give him, but then Ruby approached from the sidelines, and laughed hard.

'Ehehehahaaah! You truly make me laugh, kiddo!' He teased with a smug grin on his face. 'I don't snowboard much either, but at least I could turn way better than you did, and I had the guts to show off some of my awesome moves!' Ruby bragged as he showed off his muscles in a posing manner before walking back to the sidelines. Rick looked down to the ground a bit sad from Ruby's words, but then Wendy approached him patting him on the back.

Don't pay attention to that guy, Rick. I think you did great!'

'Thanks, Wendy, I'll try to do better next time, though!' He said with more confidence in his voice.

Though just as they were done racing and all took the chairlifts back up the hill and preparing to head for home, suddenly a helicopter appeared from near the vicinity of a nearby town, and it seemed to be heading their way.

'Hey guys, isn't that a helicopter?' Jam asked to the rest.

'Seems so... but it isn't mine, I can see that.' Linda responded to the rest, before her expression suddenly turned into a frowning one as she could see the face of somebody she knew all too well pictured on the helicopter as it came closer into view.

'GAAHH! NICOLE!' Linda yelled as it was about to land near them.

Indeed, the helicopter was painted yellow and had the image of Nicole Couch depicted on it as a sign of her property. As the flying vehicle landed on a solid piece of straight snow, the blonde-haired rich girl jumped out and fitted her coat with fur edges back properly, greeting everybody else.

'Hello, it's been awhile, guys!' She shouted to the rest, still standing on the same spot after the helicopter landed not far away from them, save for Ruby who tried to get his hair back in place from the wind the helicopter caused.

Nicole Couch is a very rich girl whose father's company, Couch Inc. is in fierce competetion with Linda's father's company, Maltinie Co., which has been going on for about 2 years now. Although Nicole seems to live and attend school in a different part of Canada, Rockhigh City, she visits Snow Town often as one of her more favourite vacation resorts to relax whenever the city gets too hectic for her. Unfortunately, she also met up with Linda there, and the 2 rich girls both knowing much about their father's rivalry with one another, are constantly at each other's throats as a result of it, constantly attempting to insult, humiliate or triumph over each other in about every way, including snowboarding.

'WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE, NICOLE?' Linda immediatly lashed out against her with rage in her eyes visible. Nicole showed a disgusted expression as well when she saw Linda was amongst the group, though she tried to keep her mind focussed on what she came here to tell the others for the time being, forgetting Linda. 'Hmph! well, I came all the way here to inform you guys that there's this new sports resort company, Frost Entertainment Enterprises, recently opened up buisness, and in order to celebrate it's grand opening, it's holding a festival in a place called Shinehill Valley, a peaceful vacation resort somewhere in Canada.' Out of her fur coat's pocket she pulled out a big advertisement flyer, showing it to all the others.

'It has a 3-day vacation period, with even a carnival and several other grand attractions set up there during the festival, and the best part is, there's gonna be a snowboarding competetion with as grand prize...' She grinned in expectations of the other's expressions on what she would say. '150.000 G.'

'What? 150.000 G.?' everybody repeated with popping eyes.

'Uh-huh,' Nicole continued on, grinning at this part. 'And I'm going there as well. Couch Inc. has been supplying Frost Enterprises with fundings to start the up business, on the condition that I would get a pre-reservation for the festivals and the competetion!' Now looking at Linda, with a 'take that!' look on her face, she taunted: 'Not only did we gain a good deal with this UNLIKE Maltinie Co., I'm going to prove my snowboarding skills there and show everybody that Couch Inc. delivers the best quality sport gear, oh how much more deals we will get after that, Ahahahaaa!' Laughing with a grinning snobby laugh.

Linda grew furious hearing about that, and started to pull on Nicole's cheek, who did the same to Linda in retalliation. Then suddenly another girl stepped out of the helicopter. 'Sorry it took awhile, I was on the phone with my director, some scene discussions.'

'Hey, it's Pamela!' Nancy shouted as she saw who approached them. 'How come you're in a helicopter ride with Nicole?'

'Oh, Nicole's father had a meeting with my director who both came there with helicopter. She offered me a ride home when I was done, which I accepted.' she explained. 'Oh, hi there everybody' she waved to the others, before she noticed Linda and Nicole were fighting each other again.

'Oh dear...what are they fighting over now?' She asked Nancy, who explained everything to Pamela and told her what happened this morning...

Meanwhile, while the rest were talking with each other about the festival news they heard, Rick stood there with a blushing expression on his face when he saw Pamela step out of the helicopter, and quickly turned his face away to let the others avoid seeing him like that. Unknown to anybody, Rick had a secret crush on Pamela Rasteri, whose movies he watched and liked alot, and developed a deep liking to her. He always dreamed of meeting her sometime, but he would have never expected her to be friends with the same people he just met today, and grew a bit nervous as how to react to her when she showed up.

'There, that's Rick.' Rick snapped out of his thoughts as he saw Nancy and Pamela approaching him, Nancy pointing at him. 'He's a friendly guy who we just met up with during school, and he likes to snowboard too. He did pretty good for his first time in a race we just had.' Pamela walked up to Rick, and gave out a hand, wanting to greet him properly. 'Hi, nice to meet you, Rick! My name's Pamela.'

Seeing her so close, Rick became so nervous he could barely move, and thought in himself: 'Oh my god, oh my god, she's talking to me...come on, Rick! SAY SOMETHING!' Sticking out a hand in return, he replied, but heavily stuttering. 'Ehh, hi-hi there, Pa-Pamela! Ni-Nice to meet y-you as well!'

'Is there something wrong? You sound all stuttery.' Pamela questioned Rick, who quickly came up with a excuse.

'Er... I go-got a bit c-cold there in the la-last race. Must ha-have hitted the cold sn-snow pretty deep at the-the finish!' He faked and clacked with his teeth to make it seem like he had a real cold there.

'Yikes, well, get better soon!' Pamela then turned her attention to Nancy. 'So Nicole is bragging about winning that contest held at Shinehill Valley huh? She told me all about it on the way here. Sounds like fun!' Though Nancy then scratched her head in a questioning matter: 'I think it's really fun too, but how are we going to get there? I don't have enough money for a trip all the way over there.'

Then as Linda and Nicole were still fighting each other, the servant piloting the helicopter started up the engine again and shouted to Nicole: 'Mistress Couch! We must get going now, it's almost dinner time and we still need to pick up your father!'

Upon hearing that, Nicole instantly let go of Linda, and runned towards the helicopter, and stepped in as it lifted off the ground, Nicole shouting: 'See you later, Linda! I have a snowboarding competetion to win!' She laughed as the helicopter then took off in the direction of the city again. Linda stomped in the ground with rage and yelled as loud as she could towards the helicopter. 'IF YOU THINK YOU CAN BEAT ME TO THE PUNCH, THINK AGAIN, COUCH! I'LL GET THERE AND SHOW THOSE PEOPLE WHO WILL WIN! GAAAAHHH!'

Nancy then approached Linda with a concerned and slightly scared look on her face. 'Eh..Linda, are you alright?' She then turned her head around and sounded as calmly as possible. 'I'm fine, Nancy. I now know where I'll be going to this vacation!' grinning with a determined look on her face, it being a obvious hint to the rest what she was up to. Pamela then also approached Linda, wanting to ask something of her: 'Linda, since you're going to that place to beat Nicole anyway, wouldn't you mind bringing us along for the ride? I bet we all love to see how that festival's gonna be, right guys?' The rest all nodding in agreement.

Linda then calmed down, turning her face to Pamela. 'Sure, why not?' Then turning her head to the rest of the kids and grabbed a notebook and pen from her pocket.

'Attention, everybody. Tomorrow I'm going to Shinehill Valley in order to beat Nicole. If you're interested to come along for the ride, come over here and sign your name on this notebook and I'll give it to my servants. I'm planning to leave by plane around 10:30 AM and the plane will be stationed by my castle, so be sure to bring along your stuff as well and come in time.'

After she ended her little speech, the kids took no hesitation in approaching her and signing on for the trip, obviously not wanting to miss out on such a golden opportunity. Pamela signed in first. 'I've got free from the set anyway, so I'm going as well, I'm looking forward to the festivities there.' Though her real reason for joining in was to witness what Nicole and Linda would be up to there.

Slash and Jam then signed on. 'Heheh, a snowboarding competition AND 150.000 G., I'll be sure to win that!' Slash remarked with a grin after signing on. 'Just be careful you don't get any bombs in your face!' Linda smirked as she taunted Slash while he and Jam walked off, leaving with a irritated look.

Ruby with a twink in his sunglasses also signed in, then told himself as he walked off: 'Aw YEAH! I'm gonna win that 150.000 G. and buy myself that stylish golden jacket, then my muscles and haircut will REALLY stand out! And with my experience from the last tournament, it'll be a piece 'o cake!' Linda looking a bit awkward as he said that, knowing all too well that during the previous tournament Nicole hosted, Ruby spended the majority showing off rather than focussing on the race.

Tommy, Wendy and Nancy also signed in for the festivities being their reason, though Tommy looked forward to how the food there would taste.

Lastly, Rick also signed on, and said his goodbyes to the rest as he walked off, but Wendy also walked with him on his way, as their houses weren't so far away from each other. Though as they walked away from the rest, Rick thought he could hear something from the bushes... but he shrugged it off and continued on.

Though lastly as Linda and Nancy walked off towards their homes with Linda grabbing her cell phone and calling her home to inform the assistants, when nobody was around, out of a nearby branch of bushes jumped a familiar mean-spirited boy and laughed in himself.

'Eheheheheeheh! So, they're all going to a tournament where there's 150.000 G. to be won? I'll DEFINITELY be there as well!' It was Damien, ever the mischievous demon kid, having overheard it all from the start after he witnessed the race from a distance and followed the kids around. He crossed his arms as he tapped his foot in the ground, thinking to himself. 'Hmmm, I didn't sign on because those losers obviously won't trust my reasons for going along with it. I'm not exactly a peaceful fun-loving guy, plus they haven't forgotten my claims of conquest! I gotta find a way to sneak aboard that plane tomorrow, or else no dice...' He then grinned mischievously as he runned off into the woods...

'Just you wait, Slash! I'll pummel you and your friends, win that tournament and use the cash to build the most awesome and dangerous mecha to conquer Snow Town with! GAAHAHAHAAHAAAA!'

As Rick and Wendy were walking, she then questioned Rick on something she noticed awhile back. 'Hey, Rick,' Rick snapped out of his thoughts and looked at her. 'What is it, Wendy?'

'Why did you stutter so much when Pamela talked to you? I've overheard you two, and you certainly didn't have a cold when you lost that race.' Rick sighed, knowing Wendy saw through his lie easily. 'Well...the truth is, I am kinda really nervous to talk to her, and was afraid I would go off so embarrassingly to her...which I still kinda did.' He looked down a bit in shame when he thought about it. 'I've watched some of her movies and really like her alot, but I didn't expect her to show up here of all things.' He told Wendy looking a bit shy and to the path they walked on.

'Well, if you like Pamela so much, just build up the confidence for it and tell her. It's better than acting like a weirdo around her, that's for sure.' Wendy told Rick, to which he then looked up to her and smiled a bit. 'Yeah, you're right. That's the best thing to do.'

They came to where a general store stood and Rick walked off the path and he waved after Wendy. 'Thanks for the talk, Wendy, but I've gotta leave you now. I live here. OH! And if you need something, you can always come to the store!' He tried in a humourous attempt to point towards his father's store, to which Wendy laughed a bit in return, and waved back. 'Okay, will remember! See you tomorrow at Linda's!' She continued down the road to her own house.

As the sun begun to set behind the horizon, Rick entered his father's store through the main opening before closing time, and greeted his dad, who was busy behind the counter with the cash register. 'Hey dad! I'm home!' His father looked up as he closed the cash register and walked towards the opening closing it. 'Hey, sonny! How went this race with the other kids you talked about?'

Rick stood by the staircase waiting for his father to come over there as well. 'Well, it went great dad. I lost, but that didn't matter to them. They were very friendly too! How did it go with your store, got much costumers today?' He and his father walked upstairs to the hallway to which his father then stepped towards the kitchen. 'Good to hear that! And yes, I've gotten 10 more people than yesterday. The last customer was some friendly woman who bought a can of spinach. Well, I'm going to make dinner now, so tell me more about it when I'm done cooking, ok?' 'Sure, dad!' Rick smiled and went to his room where he sat on his bed to reflect upon what Wendy told him. At dinner, Rick told his father about Linda and her offer for the trip to Shinehill Valley and the festivities there.

'Ah, Linda Maltinie, huh? I've heard that name before. Isn't her family very rich?' His dad questioned while taking a bite from a meatball. 'Yes, indeed.' Rick replied also busy with his dinner. His dad then putted his fingers below his chin in a pondering manner for a few seconds, before he came to a decision. 'Well, since she's rich and plans the whole trip, I take it she's also covering up sleeping rooms and food, and has servants to watch over you all. I know you're a kid who can take good care of yourself, Rick, but I feel so much better to know that you and your friends have some protection around there, so I'll give you permission to go there. Just make sure you're well prepared, and please bring back something nice, ok? I'll tell your mother about it over the phone tonight.'

Upon hearing that, Rick smiled and shaked his father's hand in thanks. 'Thanks, dad! You're the best! And don't worry, I will!' They both ate up their food and Rick walked up to his room to begin packing in his stuff, but then his father interrupted him with one more question: 'Oh, and please tell that Linda girl that if she needs anything, she can come here anytime!' Rick smirked at dad's remark, and walked in his room to proceed on with his plan.


	4. Chapter 4: Takeoff and Arrival

As morning dawn arrived early over Snow Town, the kids all stood up early to prepare themselves for the trip. At Linda's Castle, a large plane was being set up for departure within a hour. The plane was build in a red scheme with Linda's face and name on it, as some sign of ownership. As Linda stood up, she prepared herself for the trip, making herself up and thought about what Nicole said yesterday, groaning a bit, and said to herself: 'Watch out, Nicole, when I'm done with you, you'll wish you never informed me of this tournament, ahahaha!!' Then at that moment, one of Linda's servants knocked on the door. It was Egbert, a dog butler. 'Excuse me, Miss Maltinie, but there seems to be a group of children outside the gates to see you in connection with your plane trip.'

Linda stood up from her dressing table, and passed by, notifying Egbert. 'Ah, thanks for the information, Egbert. Could you tell the other servants to pack in my stuff and please open the gates for them.' 'Right away, Miss!' Egbert walked off towards the entrance of the Castle while Linda walked to the dinner room for breakfast.

As Egbert walked up to the front gates, he then opened them and bowed to the bunch of kids waiting outside. 'Please, come in!' He politely bowed and stepped aside, though noting Ruby, he then asked: 'Excuse me sir, but are you sure you're a child? You look more like a chaperone in all honesty.' Ruby grumbled in irritation. 'No, I just look this way!'

.

'Finally!' Slash muttered as the rest walked in. Though as Egbert soon ran to a nearby bunch of servants to tell them to pack in Linda's stuff, Damien soon appeared out of the nearby woods and took his chance to quickly run past the gates and jumped in another bunch of bushes that surrounded the castle, quietly going in the direction of the plane... Then Egbert came back and closed the gates.

One of the other servants, Yanci, told the kids to take place in the foyer lobby until Linda would arrive. For 20 minutes the kids entertained themselves with Slash and Jam telling each other about their plans at the festival, Rick sat close by reading a comic book . Tommy was eating a morning breakfast bar, Nancy talking with Wendy about private stuff, and Ruby stood at a mirror looking at himself as he combed his hair and flexed his muscles.

Then Linda arrived in the room, welcoming the rest. 'Ah, good morning everyone!' Though she then noticed Pamela wasn't amongst them. 'Hey, where's Pamela?' Then Egbert arrived once more to inform Linda. 'Miss Linda, there's a pink-haired girl at the gates, telling she's a bit late.' 'Let her in, please.' Linda commanded friendly, then turning her attention to the rest again. 'Did you all bring your stuff along for the trip?' The rest all showing their suitcases and bags.

'Good, please put your bags at the castle entrance and follow me. My servants will carry them for you.' She signaled the others to follow her, and they walked outside the castle entrance and then to the left in the front yard where upon turning a corner, revealed the plane to the rest, all looking with wide eyes how it showed Linda's image on it. Then a staircase for the entrance of the plane was pushed forward by a few servants, and the rest walked up to the inside where there was about 20 seats, 2 on both sides in 5 rows. Slash picked a place for his own and pulled out a handheld gaming system for the trip, Jam and Wendy sitting next to each other in another row. Ruby in another seat for himself picking up a Muscle Magazine issue from a magazine folder near him, Tommy sat down on a place of his own too, and Rick stood there still wondering where he should sit down, until he noticed Pamela also entered the plane. 'Sorry, Linda, I overslept myself a bit.' 'Oh, that's okay. Please take a seat, and put your bags down, my servant will help you further with it.' Pamela did so and took a empty seat. Rick saw this chance, and prepared himself to approach her reflecting on Wendy's words once more, until he saw that Nancy approached her and took a place next to her, Rick sighing in dissapointment, and took a place next to Slash as the plane would prepare for takeoff.

'Excuse me, can I sit here next to you, Slash?' Rick questioned pointing at the empty seat next to Slash. 'Oh, sure.' Slash remarked, then as Rick sat down he then shouted in frustration: 'Dang it! Lost from that laser boss again!' Rick looked up a bit suprised. 'What's the matter?' Slash paused the game, looking a bit irritated. 'Oh, it's that stupid laser boss at the Frightful Fortress! I can't get past his twin laser attack!' Rick recognised the game he was playing. 'Oh, that's Super Scamper, right? You gotta go to the previous level to get a upgrade for your jumps first, it's behind a waterfall.'

'Oh, thanks!' Slash remarked, and the 2 entertained themselves with Rick watching how Slash played giving out tips whenever nessecary. 'Huh, you look a bit pale, Slash, what's wrong?' Slash shrugged a bit. 'Oh, mom made spinach last night, she bought it fresh from a store yesterday.'

Meanwhile, as the plane would soon prepare to lift off, one of the servants arrived with a large box still open, but forgot one more thing and runned off back inside with the box standing near the cargo hold opening. Damien poked his head of the bushes, looked around a bit, and saw the large box still open. Grinning, he runned to it when nobody was looking, and jumped in the box, landing on something soft that seemed like a blanket amongst all kinds of other stuff like clothing and snowboards, and quickly hided under the blanket, whispering: 'Heheheh. 150.000 G., here I come!' The servant then returned with some duct tape for stripping the box close firmly, and looked into the box one more time to check if everything was still in place. 'Yep, all there!' He then closed the lids of the box and stripped it with duct tape, then pushing it in the plane's cargo hold as it then closed and the plane lifted off, on course to Shinehill Valley.

The plane flight lasted about a hour before the kids, all asleep at that point in time, were waked up by a intercom message. 'Attention, people, within 5 minutes we will land at Shinehill Valley.' The kids all looked down at their windows, enjoying the view of the resort. It seemed not very wildly populated, so it would seem a nice relaxing spot. As the plane eventually landed on a reserved private landing spot, all the kids stepped out, and were given their personal suitcases and bags, except for Linda, who wanted hers to be delivered soon at where she would sleep for the nights.

Though the trip went all fine and the kids all talked up and looked around the vicinity of the nearby tree's and sights, Tommy was the only one who didn't feel so well. 'Tommy? What's wrong?' Nancy asked him, looking concerned. 'Uwoooh...shouldn't have eaten so much before the plane trip...' He swallowed his sickness in and felt alright again, though Nancy shrugged if off a bit.

'Excuse me, Miss Linda Maltinie?' A friendly man with a handlebar moustache in a piccolo suit soon approached Linda, bowing before her, and informing her. 'Greetings, my name is Hector, the piccolo of 5-star Hotel Hastoldon. We've received word of your reservation for rooms for 9 people. Please follow me, I'll show you the way to the hotel.

'Ah, nice.' Linda responded, turning her head to the others. 'Come on, we need to go to the hotel now.' The rest all following Hector while Linda's servants took care of the plane.

Though in the cargo hold, Damien soon woke up as well, fallen asleep in the box during the whole flight, and noticing it was very silent, thought it as a cue that the plane landed in Shinehill Valley, and attempted to open the box and get out of there, though the lid wouldn't bulge. 'Huh?!' He kept ramming the lid with all his strenght and using a snowboard, but it still wouldn't bother. 'WHAT THE?!! GAAH!! I'M STUCK!!! SOMEBODY, LET ME OUTTA HERE, YAAARGGGHHH!!!' He kept yelling, but the box was so thickly build nobody could hear him, and after a full minute, gave up and fell asleep from exhaustion of trying to break open the box.

About 10 minutes of walking through various not very much-occupied streets, they arrived at a grass field where there was a bright lake with a bridge over it, a playground, and in the center of it all, a 10-story hotel with the hotel's name written above in large red neon letters: 'Hotel Hastoldon.' The kids proceeded inside to the main lobby where Hector showed them the receptionist counter, where a lion stood there, welcoming the kids. Linda then walked up to him. 'Hello, I'm Linda Maltinie, my servants ordered rooms for 9 people.'

'Ah, yes. Let me look it up a second...' The lion then checking the computer before looking a bit worried. 'Oh my...sorry, miss Maltinie, but I'm afraid there's a little problem. You see, this hotel has already so many pre-reservations from other rich people that there weren't enough single rooms for you and your companions.' 'What?!' Linda questioned with buffled expression. Though the lion quickly continued on. 'Oh, but don't worry. We still have enough rooms for you and the others. Let's see... ah, there seems to be 2 open 5-person luxury sleeping rooms with seperate curtains to close off when sleeping, a wide sofa for television and bath and showers. You can share the room with the other 3 girls with another girl that also came here earlier this morning, and the 5 boys over there in the other room. We hope to make up for the lack of proper reservation with the best serving possible.' The lion then bowed.

'Hmph, alright then.' Linda replied a bit displeased with the result, but accepted the offer anyway.' Hector then showed them up the lift to the 3rd floor, and guided them to their room doors. 'Here we are. Room 35A is for the young gentlemen over there.' pointing with his left hand to the left, opened up the door with a key, and giving each of the boys a key of the room. 'Please enjoy your stay, now, as for the ladies, please follow me.' The piccolo the leaded the girls further down the hallway around a corner, and Slash, Jam, Tommy, Ruby and Rick proceeded into the room, picking out their beds and unpacking their stuff.

As Hector approached another door, he took out the keys of another room and pointed towards it with his left hand once more. 'And this here is room 46D. As the receptionist told you, we have another girl staying in here, so please try and get along, we have informed her that there would be extra guests as well. our sincere apologies for the lack of enough rooms.' He unlocked the door and handed each of the girls a key. 'Thank you, Mr. Hector.' Nancy answered. 'It's a pleasure, my child.' Hector bowed before walking off.

As Linda grabbed the doorknob, she asked Pamela: 'What do you think this other girl's gonna be like?'

'I don't know, I hope somebody friendly.' Pamela tilted her shoulders up.' Though as Linda then opened up the door, saying in a friendly tone: 'Hello, nice to mee--' she was then suddenly cut out of words as her expression lifted from kind to disgusted, and the rest also popped their eyes a bit to see who the other girl in the room was.

'What the----I'M SUPPOSED TO SHARE MY ROOM WITH YOU, MALTINIE?!!' Nicole screamed in a similar disgusted expression towards Linda.

'OH, YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING!!!' Linda screamed loudly. 'Like I'm gonna sleep in the same room with you!' The two then both proceeding to once again lash out at each other in frustration about the mixup, with the other girls looking all embarrassed while picking out their beds and unpacking everything.

After 10 minutes of unpacking and insulting, Nicole's face saw red of anger, and went on her way to complain to the receptionist about the situation. Pamela then went over to Linda who stood at her bed all silent, telling her: 'Linda, me and the other girls are going to get something to drink downstairs, should we bring something for you as well?' No thanks...I'm not thirsty...' Linda whispered. Pamela then walked out of the room with Nancy and Wendy as well, obviously gotten the hint that Linda wanted to be left alone for awhile. As soon as they left the room and closed the door, Linda then fell on her bed and began to cry as she muttered in anger: 'Why in the world do I have to share my room with that serpent?! Urgh...' Though right then, suddenly there was knocking on the door, and Linda opened up, wiping away her tears as she attempted to smile once more.

'Ah, Miss Maltinie. Here is your stuff.' One of her servants told her as he shoved the box into the room and proceeded to cut open the ducktaped lid for her to unpack. 'Ah, my clothes, snowboards and other stuff. Thank you.'

Her servant then bowing before leaving. 'Have a nice vacation, Miss!' Linda walked up to the box with all her stuff in it, but before she checked it, she heard some kind of snoring sound in it. 'Huh? What the.... something's sleeping in there?!' She opened up the box in curiosity, before her face turned sour once more, and reacted in anger.

'DAMIEN?!! WHAT IN GOD'S SAKES ARE YOU DOING BETWEEN MY STUFF, YOU CREEP!!!!!' Hearing the loud voice, a snoring Damien quickly woke up and looked up, fright immediatly showing in his face as he saw the angry rich girl. 'Eh-heheh...hello?' She then quickly grabbed him by the arm and in fury tossed him out of the box where he landed with a loud thud on the floor, Linda proceeding to check on all her stuff and shouting: 'GET OUT OF HERE, NOW!!!!' Damien knew that she was truly angry at the time and quietly tried to walk out of the door, until Linda suddenly screamed, her face now turning completely volcano red. 'GAAAAAAGHH!!! MY FAVOURITE SHIRT, FRESH FROM THE LATEST DESIGN, IT COSTED ME 1000 G. FOR THIS!!!' She looked at the shirt which had 2 big holes in it, probably being ripped by Damien's horns while he was in the box unknown to him. Now it all was too much for Linda to handle all the stress that befell her this morning. Not only did she have to share her room with Nicole, but now Damien has ripped up her favourite shirt. Her face now steaming with hot air and steam coming out of her nostrills, she quickly turned her head to Damien, showing her yellow furious eyes and growled like a bear to him. Damien now shaking and his green skin completely turning white.

Meanwhile, at the boy's room, Rick was helping Slash further with the final boss of the game, Tommy drinking something to cool his stomach off from the sick feeling, Jam listening to some rap album on the stereo and Ruby working with some dumbbells. Until they could hear something loud coming from the hallway. They could easily hear some loud stomping footsteps and yelling.

'WAAAAAAAH!!! I'M SORRY!!! I'M REALLY SORRY!!!! PLEASE DON'T KILL MEEEEEE!!!' a snickering yelping voice. *BAM* *KABOOM!!*

'COME BACK HERE, AND LET ME KILL YOU!!!!' a low almost demonic voice yelled as it continued. Rick stood up and looked around the corner of the open door as he saw that white-colored weird horned boy was running in their direction from a corner in the hallway, and some snowboards being smacked with force in his direction, missing and hitting the wall, though one of them hitted him hard as he had a big bump on his head, and runned in incredibly fast pace towards them crying. He then quickly turned around and jumped in the room past Rick, all snickering. 'What the...DAMIEN?! What are yo---' Slash tried to react but was quickly cut off by Damien running up to him and pulling him on his shirt panicking. 'PLEASE, HELP ME HIDE!! IF YOU DON'T HIDE ME, SHE WILL KILL ME!!!' He cried in desperation.

Jam went for the door shutting off his stereo, and he saw that around the corner, Linda was approaching with the most furious expression ever and steam still coming out of her nostrills, holding a whole pack of snowboards in her arm, scanning her eyes around until she noticed Jam and stomped in a faster pace towards him. He shutted the door immediatly as his face also turned white, and managed to yelp out: 'Guys, Linda doesn't seem very happy....at all!' Damien then yelled again to Slash: 'HELP ME HIDE, PLEEHEHEHEAAASEE!!' He cried with it. Rick walked up to him, picked him up and threw him in the closet, whispering: 'Stay in there and be quiet!' shutting it just in time as Linda then forcefully barged the door open, smacking Jam against the wall, the other boys immediatly speechless. 'WHERE IS HE?!!'

'Wh-who do you mean, Linda?' Slash replied with sweatdrops coming off his forehead. She proceeding to pick him up and shaking him around. 'DON'T PLAY DUMB WITH ME, KAMEI! I KNOW DAMIEN'S IN HERE, AND WHEN I FIND HIM, HE'S GONNA WISH HE STAYED IN THE UNDERWORLD!' Rick then tried to calmly lie to Linda: 'Sorry, Linda, but I haven't seen anybody coming in here, Jam just looked outside to see what all the fuss was about and we only saw you approaching.' Linda let go of Slash, who was now all dizzy, and stomped out of the room, and proceeded down the hallway further in search of Damien.

'Whew...that was scarier than a horror movie!' Rick putted his hand on his chest to help himself breathe and proceeding to pick up Jam and help him recover from the smack. Slash also fell more safer now, and stopped shaking around. He then stood up to walk to the closet, and picked a still shaking Damien out of it, throwing him on the floor, standing up and still nervously, asked: 'Is-is she gone?'

'Yeah, she is.' Slash looked with a angry frown towards Damien. 'Now tell up, Damien! What are you doing here?' Damien calmed down by calmly breathing from exhaustion for 10 seconds, his skin becoming normal green again, before he smirked. 'Heheheh, I followed you all the way over here, in order to participate in that tournament and win myself that 150.000 G., plus to humiliate you in the process, ahahaha!!' Slash then smirked and commented back. 'And how are you going to do that if you don't have a snowboard?' Damien's face then turned baffled as he then realized he forgot to bring a snowboard along with him, his plan now completely ruined. 'NOO!!!' He shouted before kneeling on the ground. 'And I don't even have a place to stay now...'

Slash looked away, grumbling: 'Heh, isn't of my concern, you came here all unprepared.' Damien just grunted on the floor, until Rick in a case of feeling sympathetic with the demon child, lifted him up and telling him: 'Hey, you can sleep in my bed.' Damien then looking with suprised eyes to Rick. 'Re-really?' Rick just smiling to him. 'Yep, I've got a blanket with me anyway, I'll use that and sleep on the couch instead. Oh, and as for the snowboard, you can use mine. It's not really all that great, but hey, a board's a board.' Rick opened up his closet and pulled out his snowboard, handing it over to Damien. 'Thank you...' Damien replied, smiling a bit while looking at it.

Slash was baffled by Rick's friendlyness towards Damien, and pulled him over to the sofa, where he whispered in his ear: 'Are you nuts, Rick?! Damien's a demon kid who's probably going to use that money for bad ends if he wins that tournament. Why are you offering him your bed and board to him?' Rick shooked a bit from hearing he was a demon child, but quickly took it in easily himself being used to read about weird stuff in his comics, and responded calmly: 'Well, he might be up to no good, but really, I can't leave him alone on the streets and without food. That's cruel, even for a demon kid.'

Rick then proceeded to the opening in the door, telling the others: 'I'm going to check up on Linda, and ask for somebody to fix the door back in place.'

Damien then interrupted Rick. 'Wait!' The boys all looked at Damien. 'If you see that Linda... please tell her I didn't do it on purpose.' Damien sounded with honesty and actual guilt over it to Rick.

'Will do.' Rick replied, before leaving the other boys there, looking at Damien, still happy over Rick's generosity.

As Rick went down the elevator to go to the main floor, turning to head for the receptionist, he suddenly noticed that Linda stood there, still somewhat angry, ranting to the other girls about Damien and what he did, Pamela confused over who this Damien fellow is. Nancy then explaining everything about Damien to her. Shortly after that, Linda walked off, now a bit thirsty and headed to a vending machine to get some spring water in a bottle.

Rick gulped a bit, before he decided to head over to Linda, now drinking some water and feeling somewhat relieved from stress, and greeted her.

'eh, hi there Linda.' She turned around to Rick, and greeted back. 'Oh, hi Rick. My apologies for back there, I was just really annoyed about that Damien!' She looked with a frown upon mentioning him. 'Oh, sorry, I don't think you know about him, do you?' She then asked him, to which Rick then scratched his head a bit and then came out with it. 'Umm, actually...'

He then filled her in of what happened with Damien on their room, and told her that Damien didn't really do that to Linda on purpose, whatever he did. When he was done, Linda frowned a bit, telling Rick: 'Rick, you don't know Damien very well. He's a mischievous jerk, even more so than Slash. Why do you trust him on his word?' Rick explained back to Linda that Damien really sounded honest on his word to him, and that he does probably mean it.

'Hmm... alright then, I'll take you for your word, Rick, but don't complain to me if it turns out you're wrong.' Linda turned around and wanted to walk away to the girls, but she then thought back on what Rick mentioned about his snowboard having borrowed it to Damien for the upcoming tournament, and turned her head to Rick once more. 'Oh, but you're without a board, right? I don't really think you made a smart choice with handing it over to somebody like Damien, but because you're being so honest with me, I suppose I could let you borrow one of my own boards for the tournament.' Rick smiled upon hearing that. 'Aw, thanks Linda!' Linda smirked slightly and before walking off, claiming: 'Yeah, yeah, just come over to room 46D this evening so you can make a choice.'

'OK, will do!' Rick replied as he too headed off to the receptionist to inform about the door, claiming it was a accident with football practice.

The following hour proceeded without any real further troubles. Damien promised under some heavy talking and slight arguing with Slash and the other boys in the room that he wouldn't pull off anything suspicious, and though Damien really promised his heart on it, the rest didn't seem to believe him much except for Rick and Tommy, though they left it at that for the time being. After some lunchtime between the boys and girls, They decided to go and search for where they could sign up for the upcoming tournament...


	5. Chapter 5: Tournament Setup

The gang all stepped outside as the sun shined, and as they walked down the path near the lake, Linda questioned Nicole: 'OK, Nicole. Since you know all about this tournament, you must know where to sign in, right?'

'Of course I do, Linda!' What else do you expect from me?' She grinned a bit as Linda looked a bit irritated back at her. As they further walked down the path within 10 minutes, they eventually arrived at what seemed to be a booth with a large screen set up on it, where the text: 'Frost Enterprises Tournament' appeared on, and the rest hurried over there. Nicole reached the counter first, and asked to the man standing behind the booth looking down at the ground busy with something: 'Hello, is this the sign-up booth for the Frost Tournament?'

Then the man looked up and saw Nicole, sounding all active and friendly: Ah, miss Couch is it, right? Ayup! This here's the place where you can sign yourself in for the tournament. Though I was just busy trying to correct the computer, but it should do nicely again now.' He looked at the time display on the computer. 'Ah, 15:30 exact! You're just in time for the sign-up to officially start!' He looked at the list of reservations for the tournament. 'Ah yes indeed. It seems you're one of the 3 pre-reservations for the contest, miss Couch!'

After all that explaining from the man behind the booth, Nicole then was a bit suprised to hear that she wasn't the only one who got a reservation in on the tournament. 'Huh? Oh, nevermind. And yes, I'm Nicole Couch, daughter of Couch Inc. here to confirm my entry.'

'OK', the man then displayed a new screen on the computer, showing a list of entry's, in total 12 entries to be allowed, with Nicole's name now being placed on #1.

Then Linda right thereafter approached the booth, pushing Nicole out of the way. 'Linda Maltinie here, representative of Maltinie Co., I'd like to sign in as well!'

'Consider it done!' Linda's name was then displayed on the screen as #2. She walked away smirking towards an irritated Nicole.

Then Slash approached all fired up. 'Sign me in, because I'm sure to win this! Slash's Kamei's my name!' He told the man with confidence.

'Ah, energetic aren't we? I like that! There ya go!' And with that, Slash's name was displayed as #3.

Though Rick stood there, he counted the amount of people all wanting to sign up for the tournament, and with the 3 reservations counted in, there were 10 of them all wanting to sign in, meaning there was 1 who couldn't participate in it at all, feeling slightly unsure about himself that he would be voted out because of his inexperience with snowboard racing.

Jam in the meantime signed himself on as #4, and then Linda convinced Nancy to also sign in, to which she agreed and was signed on for #5, though only doing it to have some fun.

Then it was Damien's turn. Almost immediatly after Nancy left, he boosted to the booth and writed down his name quickly. 'Sign me on! If there's somebody who's going to win that money, it's me!' He claimed. Though the man then questioned Damien's appearence. 'What's up with the horns, spiky ears and green skin, kid? You also here for the carnival dance?' To which Damien quickly agreed, to avoid any suspicious thoughts. 'Ehh, yeah, indeed!' He got in as #6.

Ruby then approached, all confident as well, and signed in. The man looked at him with a questioning face. 'What's wrong?' Ruby asked.

'Ehh... you sure you're a kid? You look like a adult to me.' Ruby looked annoyed at the remark, and shouted: 'No! I just LOOK that way! Now sign me in!'

'Ok, ok, just asking...' The man entered in and Ruby got in as #7.

Meanwhile, as Wendy signed in for #8, Tommy started to get sick in his stomach. He was still bothered by the whole plane trip shaking up his stomach, and he felt like he was going to throw up any moment now...

And then Pamela signed herself on for #9.

Slash then looked at Tommy. 'OK, Tommy! Now it's your tu--Tommy? Hey, what's wrong?' Slash asked Tommy as he looked incredibly sick and his face turning as green as Damien's.

'I gotta...OOORGHH!!!' Tommy then holded his hands for his mouth as he ran off to the nearby bushes and then bowed down, not visible what he was doing, but from the sounds he made, it was more than obvious what was troubling him. 'Ewww!!!' the rest remarked at what they just witnessed. Tommy walked back, but still not feeling all right, Slash and Nancy running over to him to help him stand and walk.

'I don't feel so good...' Tommy managed to mumble out.

Rick felt sorry for Tommy, but this was his opportunity, and taking it as Tommy was in no condition to snowboard, he walked up to the booth. 'Excuse me, I'd like to sign myself in.' Rick told the man. 'Sure, here you go.' And with that, Rick was the final entry for #10.

Nicole then walked up to the man behind the booth, asking: 'Um, who are the other 2 participants?'

Then suddenly out of nowhere, they heard a small explosion and turned their heads around, looking at what seemed to be a thick smoke cloud, though it seemed vaguely familiar to the other kids. But as the smoke cleared, the kids all looked a bit nervous, all recognizing the mysterious person that came into visible view.

'Shinobin?!' Slash exclaimed.

The figure appeared to be a ninja, dressed in a cloaking black stealth suit, had a katana suited on his back and wearing a hooded cap with a grey ring design on top of it with several spikes decorated on it and with a symbol embedded on it, probably belonging to a clan. From the back of his head light brown hair was visible in a spiky style, and the only things visible from his faca were glowing yellow eyes, and a round nose.

The figure walked past the group, and only muttered in a low voice: '...So we meet again...' as he approached the booth, he simply writed down his name and gave it to the man, his look signaling him to display it without saying anything. Shinobin apparently was #11

The ninja then walked a bit away from the booth, lifting his head up looking around. Until a few moments later, quick flashes were seen as a figure apparently jumped around from tree to tree, before landing in front of Shinobin and the rest. Waving to the group. 'Hi there!'

Not much to everybody's suprise when they saw Shinobin on the scene, they also saw a girl with short light brown hair dressed in a pink/purple training uniform with black shoes and black bracelets on both arms, wearing a paper headband with 2 long folds shaped like bunny ears, and wore a shuriken logo on the front of the headband, as well as carrying a large shuriken on her back, seemingly being much more friendlier than her ninja companion.

Shinobin glared a bit towards her, which she seemed to get immediatly. 'Oh, sorry!' She walked with a smiling face towards the man on the booth, and said: 'Hello! I'm here to confirm my registration, Kaede's my name!' 'Ok, here you go!' The man replied, and with that, Kaede confirmed her last place in #12

As she stepped back towards Shinobin, signaling to stay quiet, the man then spoke up.

'And with that, the registration's full!' The man said and he now pressed another button which seemed to display: Rules and Tournament Set-up.

'Ok, listen up, kids, you've all registrated for the tournament, which is sheduled like this: Starting tomorrow, there will be 4 races held, all on the same day but with different time shedules. There will be 3 contestants in each race, and the winner of the race advances on to the finale. The day after that, the final race will be held between the 4 winners of the previous races, and the prizes are as such:

1st place: The 150.000 G. grand prize.

2nd place: 50000 G.

3rd place: 1000 G.

4th place: 500 G.

The man then continued on: 'As for the courses, it will be set up like this: Frost Entertainment Enterprises has constructed 4 courses all placed around Shinehill Valley. Each of you will be given a small book with maps and course descriptions to prepare for the course layout. All 4 races will each be held once on each of the 4 courses, one lap from start to finish, and the final race will take the contestants through all 4 courses with the same start-to-finish conditions, but specially constructed chairlifts at the end of each course will transport the contestants to the start of the other, save for the final one.

The rest still listening with good attention, the man continued: 'As for item setup, it will however, work slightly different than you're used to. The boxes won't disappear briefly when passed through because of the 1-lap race limit. This tournament is a test of speed, control, and weapon usage skills, so use your weapons carefully. And as for boards, the only boards allowed in the competetion are Free Style, All Around and Alpine. Special boards like Star and Feather boards are not allowed. And that covers the rules. Now to set up the sheduled races!!'

After the long explanation, the man then pressed another button, and the screen flashed with the words: 'Setting up race 1...'

After a few seconds, the screen then displayed:

'Race 1

Course: Leaf Forest

Participants:

Ruby

Rick

Kaede

Sheduled time: 11:30 AM'

Rick blinked at the outcome, not epecting to have him have the first race, and against that mysterious girl of all things. Looking over to her, she seemed exited that she was also in the first race, then looking as the screen displayed the 2nd race...

'Race 2

Course: River Rapids

Participants:

Slash

Nicole

Linda

Sheduled time: 1: 30 PM'

Linda smirked at the sight of it, this was her opportunity to defeat her 2 biggest rivals in the same race, though Nicole also smirked at the thoughts of being able to get back at her. Slash just grinned as he thought it would be payback time for Linda over waht happened back at Rookie Mountain. All 3 with their own victory thoughts in their heads, they watched as the 3rd race was being decided.

'Race 3

Course: Slippy Slopeside

Participants:

Damien

Jam

Nancy

Sheduled time: 3:30 PM'

Damien grinned in himself, but Jam smirked more at he saw that from the name of the track it was set up in a track where there would be apparently lots of slopes to show off his tricks at. Nancy was just happy about it, but she does wonder how Damien would do in the race...

Then the last race was displayed.

'Race 4

Course: Boulevard Mansion

Participants:

Pamela

Wendy

Shinobin

Sheduled time: 6:30 PM

A twinkling flash came from Shinobin's eyes, happy with the results. Pamela quickly looked at him with slight nervousness, she still remembers how she barely beated him, and he seemed intending on revenge.

'And that concludes the set-up.' The man announced. ; If you want to practice up, which I recommend, then visit the Training Hills course, it's location is displayed in the maps, and it's open 24 hours a day. Please enjoy your stay, and practice well for the tournament.' The man then pulled out a small books with each of the folders. Before anybody could grab them, Shinobin grabbed 2 of the books at lightning speed, and signaled to Kaede they needed to leave now, then pulling out another smoke bomb out of his suit, mumbling to the rest with a stern look before he throwed it to the ground: 'See you all at the tournament...' He then disappeared in a flash under the smoke, while Kaede smiled to the rest before she left. 'Good luck!' Then she jumped from tree to tree into the far distance...

The rest then finally dared to speak up again. Damien scratched his head, even he was baffled by Shinobin. 'Man, that ninja guy is creepy.'

'I don't get it. What're Shinobin and Kaede doing here?' Linda questioned the rest.

The rest didn't have any idea of it, and decided to each just grab a book, and go back to the hotel to study the tracks and get some practice in...


	6. Chapter 6: Daring Bets and Preparation

As the sun setted in Shinehill Valley, the kids were all back at the hotel, and decided to each head back to their rooms in order to discuss the tournament with each other, and so the boys and girls parted ways once more.

Back in their room, Slash and Jam started to look in the books first to see what the courses looked like. Ruby wanted to train his muscles some more before he wanted to look in the book, already confident he would win, Damien sat on Rick's bed and looked at the book as well and Rick helped a still sick-feeling Tommy to his bed.

'Are you ok, Tommy?' Rick asked with concern. Tommy just shook his head vertically, his face looking less bleak than it was a while back. Rick sat down next to him, and looked a bit at the ground. 'Tommy, I'm really sorry I just walked in and took your spot in the tournament. I know I'm not a good snowboarder, but you seemed really too sick to join up with it.' Tommy patted Rick's back and mumbled out: 'Hey, don't worry about it. I didn't really want to join in the tournament anyway. I came here to enjoy the food, and don't put yourself so down, I'm sure you'll do good in the tournament!'

Rick cheered up from Tommy's words, now knowing he didn't push himself in the tournament on the cost of somebody else's dissapointment. 'Thanks, Tom. ' Rick smiled to him. 'You sure you're okay?' Tommy just lied down on his bed, closing his eyes. 'I just need to get some sleep, that's all...good night...' And with that, Tommy snored off into dreams, Rick shaking his head a bit about Tommy, but then stood up and closed the curtains to his bed. He then walked up to Slash and Jam sitting on the sofa, curious to ask about those 2 mysterious kids Shinobin and Kaede that he saw this afternoon.

'Um, guys, can I ask you something?' Slash and Jam both looked up to Rick, Jam having the first word. 'Sure dude, what's up?' Rick sat down next to Jam on the left. 'Who were those 2, Shinobin and Kaede? I've heard you guys talking about them on the way to our room, did you race them before?'

'Yeah, though only 2 times.' Slash remarked. 'When that Linda wanted to prove her so-called 'superiority' at snowboarding, she holded a competetion, which Jam, Nancy, Tommy and I entered, though when we decided that the final race should be held somewhere in Japan during a festival, at that place that ninja guy showed up. Didn't say anything at all to us, except that he wanted to race us, 'to test my skill', he told us as his reasoning.'

Jam then continued on for his best friend. 'So we raced that dude with me, Slash and Linda as the other racers, but to our suprise, he used a very differently shaped board than we did, apparently looking like some kind of large japanese weapon, but it felt it worked like a Alpine Board from the way he steered that thing around. The dude was very tough to keep track off, he seemed to go very fast and took most turns in with little effort, plus his dodging skills were great. Even on a few times when we used a pan, he just disappeared. If it weren't for the ghosts to slow him down, he would have probably won! And all he said to us after he lost, was 'For beating me...you're allowed to know my name...Shinobin...' and then he vanished again.

Slash then groaned. 'Too bad it was Linda who just managed to beat him...grrr! She kept rubbing it in our noses the next few days after it. Though a week later, Nicole holded a tournament of her own, also insisting to visit that same place to race at for the finals, but this time there was no festival going on. We were beaten out of the tournament by Pamela, Tommy, Nicole and Linda, but we still went there as well, but just as they were preparing the race, Shinobin showed up again, daring us to race him and a relative of him, that Kaede girl as well in the same race, on the bet that if they won, they would get the prize money of 100.000 G. We all thought it was nonsense, but Nicole being so confident of her skills, accepted the bet, despite our protests. Though Kaede seemed to be pretty good, being just as speedy and good at cornering as Shinobin was, she didn't pay attention that often and they got some hits in on her, and Pamela won this time around.'

Jam smirked a bit then. 'Though the one silver lining to our loss was that Pamela used her winning position to make Linda and Nicole eat their bets they putted in each other's faces, Linda eating spaghetti through her nose, and Nicole peanuts with her eyes, but she had to resort to picking them up with her tongue instead. Aw man, I still can laugh endlessly over how Linda couldn't stand the mentioning of spaghetti for the next few days, HAHAHAAHAA!!!'

Slash and Jam both laughed, thinking about it again, though Rick got a awkward look on his face. 'Eating spaghetti through your nose? Boy, are those girls always fighting like that?' Slash and Jam nodded after they stopped laughing.

'Well, thanks for the explanation, guys.' Rick nodded as he then stood up and went for the door. 'I need to get something first, though, shall we order a pizza or something next?' The rest nodded with exitement, Slash and Jam discussing what type of pizza they would order.

As Rick left the room on his way to the girls' room, he pondered about their description of Kaede's abillities. 'Doesn't pay attention much, huh? Sounds like a female version of me when I read comics.' He laughed a bit in himself as he approached the girls' room, and knocked on the door. Linda then opened up and greeted Rick. 'Oh hi there, Rick. I take it you come for the board borrowing I offered?' Rick nodded in response. 'Ok, follow me. But please don't take so long, me and the other girls were discussing the courses.' 'Don't worry, I won't take long to pick out a board.' Rick replied.

As Linda walked with Rick to her closet, he noticed the girls were al sitting in a group around a table discussing some matters with each other, until they noticed Rick, and all said hi to him. He blushed a bit from so many girls greeting him at the same time, and just waved back and turned his head to Linda again, Pamela and Wendy giggling a bit about it.

Linda then opened up her closet, and showed Rick her boards, ranging in order from Free Style, All Around and Alpine. 'There you go, pick one out.' Rick holded his hands at his chin in a trivial manner, reflecting on what Jam told him after the race on what he needed to improve, and within 10 seconds, picked out a brown-black painted Free Style board. 'There! Mind if I can borrow this one?' Rick asked Linda as he grabbed it.

Linda looked at him in a puzzling matter. 'A Free Style board? I don't know Rick, you're going up against Ruby, a speedy type of guy, and Kaede, some really fast girl and good at turning as well! Picking out a slow board meant more for tricking than racing might not be a smart choice.'

Rick holded the board down in in his right arm, and replied to Linda with confidence: 'Trust me, Linda. I'm a speedy type of guy as well, always leaning forward to go faster out of impulse, but I don't exactly know how to steer perfectly yet and I haven't even performed any real tricks up until our race on Rookie Mountain. I think this board with some good practice on it will balance out my issues pretty fairly. And besides, I've heard Kaede has some weak points as well.'

Linda after thinking over it nodded with Rick, knowing she's a speed type as well. 'I understand that, but better practice up fast then. Oh, and one more tip: Ruby is very self-centered, so getting a shot on him with some good practice shouldn't be a big problem.' Rick nodded as he walked out. 'Thanks, will remember!'

'Well, we took care of that as well.' Linda rubbed her hands in satisfaction. Nicole questioned Linda: 'What was that Rick fellow doing over here?' Linda sat down with the rest of the girls. 'Oh, I let him borrow one of my own boards for the competetion. He borrowed his board to somebody else.' Nicole laughed as she then teased Linda back. 'With what, your Ice board, in order to ensure that Rick won't win and possibly be a threat to you in the finale should he win?'

Linda grew irritated and taunted Nicole back. 'Like you're so generous to offer anybody a board temporarily, Couch!' The girls then argued once more, before they then suddenly came to a decision...

'Wait a minute, Linda...' Nicole smirked. 'Since we're heading up against each other tomorrow anyway, why don't we spice up things a bit to prove once and for all which one of us is better?' 'What do you mean with that, Nicole?!' Linda sneered back. 'Oh, I don't know, how about a bet that the loser has to live up to should she lose?' Nicole grinned with her eyes closing a bit towards Linda.

'Sounds good to me! But as long as it won't be food-related this time around!' The girls both showed a brief disgusted look on each other's face as they were reminded of what Pamela made them eat after she won, who giggled a bit in herself after hearing that.

'Trust me, it will be something WAAAY worse...let's see... how about that if you lose...' She thought for a few seconds looking up to the air, then grinning as she came up with something:

'If you lose, you'll have to kiss that Slash guy!' Linda's mouth then dropped open of awkwardness. 'WHAT?!!!' Though Nicole quickly added more wood to the fire. 'On the lips, with photographic evidence before the day of the finale!' Linda then saw red on her face, and turned it away. 'Forget it, Couch! I would consider it if it was somebody else, but there's NO WAY I'm ever going to kiss that arrogant brat!' Nicole then putted on a teasing voice. 'Ohh, what's wrong? Is Linda Maltinie, daughter of Maltinie Co.'s president a coward? I think your father will be dissapointed in you after he hears from MY victory!' Linda then growled with her teeth a bit, before she came up with something as well, and then putted on a calm face, replying to Nicole: 'Okay, Nicole, I'll accept. BUT if you lose, you'll have to do the same...to TOMMY!' Nicole's face showed sudden disgust as she thought about the whole thing, the other girls looking with awkward expressions as well.

'Eh, Linda... aren't you taking this a tad bit too far?' Nancy tried to talk Linda out of it, but Nicole immediatly accepted, not wanting to show any sign of cowardice to Linda. 'Fine! But watch your back at the race, Linda!' She remarked as she walked off to the bathroom in order to take a shower. Pamela then replied to Linda: 'Don't worry Linda, I'll be there to photograph the kiss.' 'Thank you, Pamela! Now we'll see who will be humiliated at the end of the race!' She muttered with confidence, though Pamela smirked in herself as she thought: 'My thoughts exactly, Linda...hihihihi...'

As back at the boy's room Rick and the rest ordered pizza from room service, they enjoyed eating their ordered pizza's while watching some TV at the table and sofa, with Tommy feeling much better after the nap. Though Rick sat kept looking at the map and description of Leaf Forest, the course on where he would race the next morning. 'Hmm... lots of turns in it... has a few slopes with jumping abillity and at most points most downhill-going cliffs to small pit area's...' He kept thinking in himself as he ate his salami-flavored pizza. Though Damien then approached Rick, looking at the book. 'Hey, what you're up to?' He questioned while taking large bites from his pizza slice, obviously being hungry.

'Ah, hi there, Damien. I'm just studying the map here, I need to prepare myself for the race tomorrow. Plus I'm thinking about heading out for snowboarding practice shortly after eating my pizza on Practice Hills here.' He pointed towards a training course which seemed about 15 minutes walking away from the hotel. Damien then added to it: 'Hey, I'm going too! You're not the only one who has a race tomorrow!' he grinned. 'OK, sounds good.'

After eating up their pizza's, Rick and Damien walked out the room with snowboard in hand, Rick telling the guys they're off to practice up for the race while they were watching some action movie. Ruby snickered at it. 'Heh, don't bother, kid, I'm going to win anyway!'

Rick groaned a bit at Ruby's arrogant remark, but left off as the 2 boys grabbed their coats and walked out of the hotel. After roughly 15 minutes of walking through various fancy streets, they reached a fairly large summit with artificial snow placed on it, a large track with some slight and sharp turns visible for cornering practice, and 3 big slopes for stunting practice. It didn't seem anybody was at the summit around this hour at 19:30, so Rick and Damien took the chairlift up to the top, and they both started their practice. Rick focussing on turning sharp corners as quickly as possible with the easy control of his Free Style board, and with it's high jumping abillity, focussed on trying to do some good jumps off the slopes, even attempting a few flips eventually in mid-air, eventually getting the hand of turning while keeping his balance and speed properly. Damien himself just tried to go as fast as possible through the course various times, as he felt a bit rusty from the last time he snowboarded with the others. He even told Rick about how to deflect shots thrown at him with the right timing of tilting his board in a jump, and practiced it using snowballs Damien would throw at Rick while going after him. After getting about 10 snowballs to his back and falling in the snow in failed attempts, Rick finally did a correct reflecting jump, and Damien got the snowball back in his face, causing him to fall over, and Rick stopped, laughing about it. Damien being irritated by Rick's laughing throwed a snowball in his face laughing in return. Though just as they did so on the base of the summit, they heard 2 girls approaching them.

'Hello there!' Pamela shouted to Rick as she approached the two with Nancy walking alongside her, both walking in regular outfits rather than with snowboards in hand, showing they didn't come here for training. Rick blushed when he saw her approaching, but he then thought once more about what Wendy told him of building up the courage to talk to her, took a big gulp, and waved back with a friendly expression. 'Oh, hi there! What are you two doing here?'

Pamela shrugged her head a bit. 'Nicole and Linda wouldn't stop arguing and we didn't want to eat anything while that went on, so Wendy, Nancy and I went over to a restaurant here in the vicinity to eat something, on my costs.' She pointed towards a nearby restaurant where Rick could see Wendy sitting on a table. 'Wendy noticed you all busy here, so we went over here to check up on you while she's going to order for us.'

Rick smiled back. 'Ah, that sounds nice. And I was busy practicing up with Damien over here for the race tomorrow.' Though as Rick looked to Damien, he noticed the demon child looked with a smiling grin to Nancy in her pretty outfit.

'Uh, Damien, you feeling alright?' Rick questioned as he tapped him on the shoulder, him popping out of his thoughts. 'Eh? Of course I'm feeling alright!' He shouted before he turned his head towards Nancy. 'Ehheheh, hello there, Nancy.' He smiled a bit towards her. Nancy smiled back when she noticed Damien standing there. 'Oh, hi there Damien. Why are you here with Rick?' She questioned him. 'Oh, me and glassy boy over there are practicing up for the tournament tomorrow, he sure needed some help with deflecting shots back!' He grinned, but he noticed Rick was in a conversation with Pamela.

'Ah, well, that's nice of you to help Rick with that.' Nancy smiled to him. 'Heheh, you think so?' Damien smiled back to her, taking it that he made a good impression on her with saying that. 'Of course, it's nice to help your friends prepare for the tournament!' She then heard Wendy shouting as their orders arrived, and she tapped Pamela on the shoulder, telling her the same.

'Oh dear, better not let it get cold. Well, it's nice to finally have talked a bit with you, Rick, see you later!' She runned back to the restaurant. Nancy doing the same, shouting back at Damien: 'Bye, Damien! See you at the race tomorrow!' waving at him before she disappeared with Pamela back in the restaurant. Rick looked at Damien once more, noticing he stood there all blushing as he waved after Nancy. 'Hey, Damien, why the blushing face?' Damien quickly snapped out of it and shouted to Rick: 'I've got a cold from that snowball, that's all!' He tried to walk off towards the streets, but Rick followed him. 'Hey, I didn't meant to tease you with it. Do you like that Nancy girl or something?' Damien just grunted, and muttered back. 'Why'd you wanna know that anyway?' 'Hey, I know how it feels to like somebody but not getting the chance to let it know her.' Rick told Damien, who could understand somewhat how he felt, seeing through his attitude. 'Hmph, whatever...' He mumbled, but they both looked at a nearby clock tower, and saw that it was 20:30, Rick looking suprised. 'Whoa! I gotta go get my sleep! I have that race early in the afternoon tomorrow!' He quickly turned his head to Damien, shaking his hand. 'Thanks for the practice, Damien! And remember, if you like her, you gotta show it to her!' Before he ran off in the direction of the hotel, Damien blushing a bit and yelling to Rick. 'SHUT UP ABOUT IT!!!' before he walked off in the direction of the hotel as well.

Meanwhile, in a room on the 8th floor of the same hotel, a girl jumped in through the open window, holding in her hand a bag of take-off food she bought from a nearby shop. 'Hey, Shino! I got us some noodles!' She called out to the ninja sitting on his bed in the room, apparently deep in his thoughts. '...I'm not hungry, sis...' He muttered as he looked out of the window. 'Fine, I'll leave it here if you change your mind, but it's not staying warm for long!' Kaede sat down on a sofa, and began to eat her part of the food. Shinobin was thinking back on why he took on snowboarding, and how it all started...

Back in Japan, he and his sister were enlisted in a highly classified ninja school by their parents to be living there and training until they would reach the age of 13, in order to become great ninjitsu's and honor their ancestors who fought in the times of war in ancient Japan, back when he was 9 and his sister 8 years of age. Though the brother and sister could get along nicely, Shinobin showed way more serious ambition in living up to his ancentors' legacy, and within a mere year already became highly skilled in using various ninja techniques and stealth. Kaede also showed great progress in ninjitsu, but due to her cheerful and playful personality and being a bit overambitious, she wasn't as highly focussed and skilled as her older brother, and seeming to like bunny's, she made a paper headband in the style of bunny ears.

Though their training and living style at school progressed on nicely, one night while Shinobin was sharping up his stealth techniques by leaping from tree to tree, he then heard voices of a discussion between 2 people from a room, staying quietly in a tree as he overheard it all, not being happy when he found out what the problem was, and jumped back to his room where he thought about the situation.

It turned out one of the 2 men he overheard talking was from a debt collector office. Apparently their school owed another clan's school a great debt in conjunction with various equipment they borrowed over the years back when they started off with a small budget and promised to pay it back one day, but the payment never occured, and now the school had enough of the waiting, and sended a debt collector with the news that if they didn't deliver the payment of 100.000 G. within the next year, they would be forced to close down the school.

Shinobin didn't want to leave the school at any costs, and began to think of a way of how to earn so much money within a year time while keeping it a secret to everybody else about the debt, even his sister, since if that news would be leaked out, the school's reputation would be ruined. One day however during a scouting mission around town, he discovered from a flyer something about a growing fad... snowboarding. Suddenly Shinobin then got a idea. He figured that with fads, there would come to be competetions for money, and as such using his knowledge from sword forging and the style of boards, made in secret a huge kunai about the size of a snowboard that worked like a Alpine board, since he couldn't let anybody know about his snowboarding idea, something that would disgrace his ninja clan. Taking up his skills to the test, he then sneaked out of school at night to practice his own constructed 'snowboard' for races to come for a month. Though his sister eventually caught up on him sneaking out one night holding his board in hand, and Shinobin explained to her the whole situation, she promising she wouldn't tell anybody and helping out her brother however she can.

Though there came no competetions around him in the vicinity, as he checked upon further scouting missions the past 3 months for possible flyers of a competetion for money, growing more and more desperate within each month...

Until one day, as Kaede trained a crow for long traveling and scouting other places in her own part of trying to help Shinobin, she got a message from her pet crow that there were a group of children in the vicinity holding a snowboard competetion in a nearby village during the cherry blossom festival. Hearing the news, Shinobin immediatly took off donning his suit and hood in order to avoid his identity being discovered by somebody, and grabbed his board telling his sister to tell their superiors he was off to fetch some new equipment for their future assignments.

After some quick traveling by foot, he discovered 5 kids all at the village wanting to race, though they didn't appear to be competing for any money...

Still, he decided it would be good experience for his first actual race and it would be the opportunity to test his agile skills on the snowboarding field. Appearing with a flash, he told the group simply to allow him in, wanting to put his skills to the test, certain that he would win... but he failed, knowing he still had much to improve, and disappeared with his name being their reward for beating him. A few weeks passed, until Kaede's crow once again alarmed those same group of children came back, but with some few more this time, plus they were competing for a price money, exactly the amount required for them pay off the debt.

Shinobin prepared to take off under yet another excuse again, but to his suprise, his sister also wanted to come along, and showed to him that she made a board of her own made out from a very large scroll, and extremely hard as well to function as a snowboard designed like a Free Style one. Though she wasn't as skilled at snowboarding as her brother was, she still wanted to tag along in order to help him win that money. Appreciating it that she went to so much trouble to help him, he allowed her to come along.

Though they both raced those group of talented kids again under the promise of the prize money if they would win, despite their teamwork they both lost, with some slight fault on Kaede's side for not avoiding some projectiles. Shinobin immediatly left again, though Kaede found the group to be nice, and told them her name before she also left. Sensing that someday he would face those kids again under another money-based tournament, he trained himself hard in deflecting projectles, cornering and jumping, and wanted Kaede to send her pet crow out to keep an eye on that blonde-haired ponytailed girl that offered so much money in the previous competetion.

A few months passed since then, and it was only about 2 weeks left before the year of the debt payment promise would end, but as the crow came back with good news, holding a piece of paper in his beak of a tournament flyer set in a place of Shinehill Valley somewhere in Canada, with the grand prize of 150.000 G., his eyes glimmered, and he and his sister then set out on a journey to that place, telling their superiors they would be off to collect rare herbs in that area.

'It has been 4 days since we left...' He mumbled as he stood up, finished thinking about the past, walked up to where Kaede was sitting eating her noodles and grabbed his part, still standing while eating it under his hood. Kaede looked up to him, smirking. 'So, hungry after all, bro?' He then sat down next to her, talking about what they did up until now. '...It took us a fair amount of our allowance money to afford this room close to where the tournament register was, but it also took some toll to ensure our reservations in the tournament itself, so don't go spending it all on food.' Kaede just smiled after she was finished. 'Don't worry, Shino! I never throw away money like that!' Shinobin then half-closed his eyes in a sighing manner. '...You were planning to use that prize money on clothes and accesories...' Upon hearing that, Keade just scratched her head, a bit nervously laughing.

Shinobin then continued on. 'You also tempered with that computer of the registration booth as I asked to ensure participants number 11 and 12 wouldn't face each other in the first races?'

'Sure did! Then we both waited for the other participants to confirm their numbers first so we would be those 2 numbers for sure!' Kaede smiled.

Shinobin then finished his meal, and walked back to his bed. 'Good... If we win both races, that will increase our chances on winning the grand prize... Soon, Kaede, we will finally be able to save our school, but we need to rest up first, especially you... good night...' After saying that, Shinobin putted off his sheated katana from his back and lied down on the bed, silently snoring, before his sister sighed and went to bed as well though crawled under the sheets of the bed to sleep...


	7. Chapter 7: Frantic Forest Race

As Rick snored lying on the sofa under a blanket and using one of the sofa pillows to rest his head on, he suddenly felt his nose being tickled, mumbling, he moved his hand onto his nose, but then felt something very cold on his face and woke up with a yell. 'WAAH!!' COLD!!' Sitting on the sofa in his pyjama's he saw there were ice cubes lying on the ground which he must have throwed on his face, and heard Damien laughing behind the sofa holding a feather in his hand. 'How'd you like my wake-up technique, Rick?' He teased waving the feather around.

'Urghh... good morning, Damien.' Rick grunted as he stood up yawning a bit. 'Where'd you get that prank idea from?'

'From Slash, he did the same to that musclehead Ruby guy earlier this morning.' Damien told him.

'Earlier this morning?' Rick raised a eyebrow before he looked up to a clock on the wall, showing it was 10:00 AM. 'Whoa! Gotta go get some breakfast in fast, then find out where that race's being held!' With that, Rick quickly dressed himself up in the bathroom and ran towards the door, waving to Damien.

As Rick runned down the hallway to the staircase going downwards to get his legs moving this early in the morning, he then approached the restaurant room where breakfast was eaten by the guests.

As he looked around for a open seat, he noticed Slash and Tommy sitting on a table alone eating some eggs with bacon, and headed towards them. 'Good morning, boys!' He smiled to the 2.

'Hey there, Rick! How are ya doin'?' Slash said as he took a gulp from his orange juice. Tommy also greeted him while swallowing down a few sandwiches. 'Hello!' Rick sat down and ordered from a waiter a grilled cheese sandwich with some milk, as he talked up with Slash a bit. 'So, also looking forward to the tournament today?' He questioned Slash who was just done with his breakfast. 'Sure am!' He smirked. 'I can't wait to beat Linda today for what happened on Rookie Mountain! Speaking of which, don't you have a race with Ruby to hold within a hour or so?' He then asked Rick.

'Yeah, but I can thank Damien for waking me up like this...Speaking of which, where are Jam and Ruby, actually?' Rick looked around a bit, seeing the two nowhere around the vicinity.

'Oh, Jam went to Practice Hills just before you came here to work on his stunts, and Ruby went to search for a local barber to get his hair done after what I did to him this morning, he wasn't happy about it, but I managed to get away.'

'Ah. Well, I gotta go and look in the book for the outlay of the map, and then grab my snowboarding gear.' Rick told Slash before he stood up and left the room heading for the staircase once more. 'Good luck, Rick! I'll be there to see how you perform!' Slash yelled as he left.

When Rick came in the boy's room once more, he saw Damien was gone, probably off to do his own stuff, so he grabbed the book once more to study the course's layout and thought back on his practice last night for about 10 minutes, before he saw that it was about 11:00 on the clock once more. 'Ah, it's almost time. If I go now I should make it within 20 minutes of walking.' He told himself as he then grabbed his borrowed Free Style board and putted on a lesser thick blue vest because of the nice weather and headed out for the course he would race on...

After 20 minutes of following the map, he came upon what looked like the entrance to a forest, and nearby was a starting line with a few people there from the tournament organization, all waiting for the entrants to come, and at what he saw of the track outlines were solid plated walls to ensure the contestants would take the correct route and not go off in the wrong direction, with nearby a few watching towers open for public that had a good view over the forest, making it easier for them to see the whole upcoming race.

Walking up to the line, he saw Ruby waiting there already, noticing him. 'Well, so you decided to show up after all, huh? Good luck, kid, 'cause you're gonna need it!' He taunted as he planted his snowboard on the ground already.

Now really furious at his constant teasing on Rick's lack of skill, Rick frowned towards Ruby. 'Okay, that's it. You wanna see me get serious? Then you'll get it!' Ruby merely smirked to him and watched to the crowd in the distance showing off some more. Rick then got the the attention of a man tapping him on the back. 'Excuse me, are you Rick?' 'Yes, I am. I'm here to participate in the first race.' Rick replied to the man, who then checked his list for a second.

'Hmm.. ah, yes. Good luck!' 'Thanks.' Rick said as he then stood ready on his snowboard.

It was 5 minutes before the race would start, and Rick was wondering when the 3rd racer, that girl Kaede would show up. But just as he thought about it, she suddenly appeared out of a tree with a very large scroll in hand, waving to both of them. She was then approached by one of the organization men.

'You're the 3rd contestant, miss...Kaede?' 'Yes, that's me!' She smiled towards him, and was given the item counter. 'OK, and the testing department also already approved of your board, it works according to the rules, like a Free Style board, so you're allowed to race using it. Now please stand ready, the race is about to begin in 2 minutes.'

Kaede runned to the other 2 guys, stood inbetween them, and placed her board in place, smiling to Rick. 'Hope you'll do great!'

'Yeah, I hope so indeed.' Rick said a bit nervously about the race and for her sudden friendlyness towards him. He overheard the conversation she had with the man, knowing her board was like the one he was using, a Free Style one, and looking right of him he saw that Ruby used a Alpine board. Having studied the track's layout, he knew Ruby didn't make a very smart choice with that board considering it has lots of turns. Then a announcer voice came out of few of the speakers setted up near the start:

'Attention, the first race of the Shinehill Valley tournament will soon begin! The course here has lots of turns to navigate and the obstacles are made out of the forest's bushes and tree's. Though there's also a river bank halfway through it near the goal, if you happen to fall in it, one of our robo-lift copters will pick you up and put you back in place immediatly. The track itself is 1100 meters long. May the best racer reach the goal first!' With that being set, the kids all stood ready in jumping position...

'Are you ready? ...GO!'

And with that, all 3 of them jumped off at a good velocity, Rick still remembering what he learned from his practice last night. All of them headed down a fairly low hill in a straight path on the smooth grass entering the forest, though Ruby quickly started to go faster due to his Alpine board...

Though after a few seconds, they soon came to the first blue item box, which Ruby got a rock out of. Rick tried to go for that box as well, but Kaede somehow leaned much more forward and went through it secondly nabbing a fan, and Rick then passed through it in last getting a ghost. Soon they then approached a fairly sharp turn to the right.

Ruby with his lack of much steering control, had to brake off much with leaning to the right from the left side of the track in order to make it. While in the meantime, both Rick and Kaede managed to turn around it at the right side without much effort. Though Rick couldn't help but notice that Kaede didn't lose any speed while turning, while he did slightly, and was in 2nd behind her over a small distance, with Ruby trailing behind not far behind him.

Deciding to use his ghost on her to slow her down knowing she isn't just a average racer, Rick sended it to Kaede, slowing her down slightly which allowed Rick and Ruby to pass. 'Yikes, get away!!!' She yelped while she still managed to maintain control. Through afterwards they came to a few swerving curves with a red box there, and a few tree's in the way acting as obstacles. Rick went through it first, getting slapsticks and managed to curve his way around the tree's without losing much speed. Ruby went in second, getting parachutes. Though he lost a good deal of speed from trying to evade the thick obstacles, at one point he did manage to shoot 2 parachutes towards Rick, who was too focussing on getting past the tree's that he got launched upwards, slowly descending, and dropped a rock while laughing as he passed Rick.

Kaede in the meantime used the fan to counter the ghost, and using her agility, steered around the tree's without losing much speed in the process and got a snowman head trio from the box. As soon as Rick landed, she fired one towards him while he was recovering, and was trapped in a snowman himself, then coming close to Ruby herself...

Rick after a few seconds of struggling managed to break free, and a bit frustrated jumped forward in trying to get some good speed again while dodging the rock Ruby left behind, and thankfully went on a downwards-going hill with a stunt slope afterwards. He could witness how Ruby did a vertical spin, and after landing, shouting: 'I AM, SUPAH MAN!!!' Much to both Rick and Kaede's awkward reactions, not knowing what in the world he was shouting. But Kaede jumped and did 2 horizontal spins, and in the process fired another snowman to Ruby, who was so impressed with his own stunting, didn't notice it and then got trapped in a snowman himself as well, while they were approaching another blue item box, and Kaede managed to get a invisibility item, smiling she then took the swift left curve, while Ruby crashed against the wall, breaking free in the process.

Rick in the meantime did a diagonal spin, landing correctly and seeing the item box, went for it and got a fan, and then immediatly pulled to the left taking in the turn and in the process fired a slapstick towards Ruby, still busy with trying to pick up speed, who now tripped and Rick now chuckled as he passed by. Though he still had a long way to go and catch up to Kaede...

The next area after the woods was in a slightly more open plain, with a river bank to the left of them, which meant the finish was not too far away anymore with alot of swerving between left and right arcs on the right side of the river, but before they would get to it, they would have to jump over another slope, and a huge one at that. Kaede pulled off one of her special flips which involved spinning horizontally while doing a full vertical flip. Rick himself attempted for once a special trick of his own which he developed in his training, and did a triple horizontal spin while grabbing his board sideways with his left hand, managing to land perfectly on that one, though felt slightly dizzy from it. Ruby passed not long after Rick and did no stunt, instead focussing with slight anger in his eyes about catching up again using the slope to his advantage to gain speed...

Kaede passed by the next blue item box, while swerving left careful not to hit the sandy hill wall to the right, not wanting to get another item for her invisibility, and continued on. Rick in the meantime after he recovered from his dizzyness wanted to prepare to use the fan and pass through the blue item box with his steering, but he heard Ruby shooting another parachute in his direction. Though this time, not wanting to get hit twice by the same item, Rick focussed on the shot coming closer, and just at the right timing jumped over the shot, though he had to miss out on the blue item box and took a sharp left turn as he landed as he was about to hit the wall. Ruby in the meantime also focussed on getting the blue item while cornering, but this time he got a pan, and used it immediatly to avoid Rick getting a chance to hit him while he lost some speed in the process. Rick was hit and stunned for a few seconds before he got up.

Kaede at that time used her invisibility to avoid getting panned and was still at a large lead, smiling as she would finally be of good help to her brother. She passed by the next red item box and got a set of bombs, as she continued to swerve right... Ruby about 6 seconds later went through it and got a set of ice shots, waiting for Kaede to stay on a straight piece of road...

Rick in the meantime after he recovered immediatly used the fan, and using his steering skills to his advantage to cut off the turns the most with his board and ignoring the red box, he then saw Ruby again. Holding a quiet profile as the muscled kid was way too focussed on trying to aim on Kaede, he then throwed his second slapstick to Ruby, who then to his surpise got hit and at the sharp right curve rolled off the cliff into the river bank. 'Graaghh!!' Rick passed by steering to the right, but in the open sight saw that Kaede was very far ahead of them now by roughly 6 seconds in time, and it didn't take long for her to reach the finish, which was only a few right and left curves away in open sight...

Meanwhile Kaede approached another blue item box, dropping her rock in front of it and got a ghost as her last item. Feeling there wasn't anybody trailing her, she didn't use it yet, plus she had bombs for the worst occasion. She continued for awhile to get onto the last stunting slope, and did a diagonal spin this time giggling as she landed.

Rick was trying to catch up to Kaede, focussing on taking turns as sharply as possible being very close to the edge of the cliff, with Ruby trailing behind him though knowing he would soon use a ice shot on him. As he passed by the blue item box, he did notice the rock dropped on front and jumped over it, gaining a unknown item to him as he jumped through it, a rocket. Ruby was preparing another shot at Rick when he jumped, but he didn't notice the rock and tripped on it past the shop, gaining a ghost as his sole item left. Grumbling, he stood up and tried to gain speed to catch up to Rick once more...

Rick in the meantime was worried. Kaede was but a mere few meters away from the finish, her going over a bridge over the river to the left first before she would turn to the right sharply, and then left again on the straight piece of road before the finish where the river before the road has arched to the right already. Plus he didn't knew what his item did, though knew it couldn't be a shoot item, so he thought it was used to launch him forward at an incredible speed. Approaching the last stunting slope himself, he heard ice shots launched his way, and was now panicking inside his head...

Until he noticed the slope in it's trajectory was on the same line as the road to the finish, him suddenly getting a idea in his head. It was probably stupid, but it was his only choice left if he wanted to win. Waiting a bit until he approached the stunting slope closely with the ice shots also closing in on him...

Then all of a sudden, Rick used the rocket item, a rocket then appearing behind his board, and using the brief boost, then jumped as high as he could into the air, boosting his way all over the river bank, skipping a large piece of track, and by a mere few inches, landed in front of Kaede on the road straight to the finish, the spectating audience all amazed by this sudden display of smart shortcut using. She prepared to use the ghost on him but couldn't use bombs at this close distance at it would also hit her, instead planning on passing Rick by default to the finish but she then suddenly noticed she was ghosted herself from Ruby while Rick was in the air, plus she looked back and saw the ice shots meant for Rick now all hitted her, freezing her in the process, but not before she used her ghost on Rick, who now was slowly heading to the finish...

'Come on... just a little bit further...!' Rick thought to himself as the ghost dwelled around him but with few inches away to the finish, finally crossing it as he saw Kaede approaching up close after she broke out of the ice. Kaede then finished 2nd, and after awhile Ruby then crossed 3rd all grumbling.

'FINISH!!' The announcer then shouted through the speakers near the end. 'And the winner of this race is Rick Pellegrino!'

Standing all amazed when he then realized he won his first actual race, he raised his fist in the air and shouted: 'YEAAHHH!!' Some of the nearby spectators even cheering on him for that amazing shortcut finish.

Kaede stood by and smiled for Rick's victory a bit, but she then noticed that from a nearby tree a familiar ninja was watching her, and crossed a brief glare at her. 'Oh-oh...brother's not gonna be happy with this...' She muttered and she then left quickly jumping after Shinobin who also left the area...

Rick in the meantime crossed eyes with Ruby, who took off his board and stomped his feet in the ground, all angry about the loss. Rick on the other hand was glad he finally showed up to that guy. 'Hey, Ruby! Not bad for a rookie, eh?' He taunted to him with a grinning expression. Ruby in response turned his head around and growled. 'Bah, you just got lucky there, kid! Next time we race I'll beat you in style!'

After having said his bluffing excuse, Ruby stepped up and was leaving. Rick followed up close as well, but he noticed Kaede wasn't around anymore, scratching his head in suprise. 'I guess they're really as mysterious as the guys made them out to be...'

After a bit of walking towards the starting line, he noticed Slash and the others standing there, all excited about the race they witnessed. As Rick was approaching them, he asked with a bit of a shy look: 'So, did I do well this time?'

Pamela smiled towards him. 'Well? You did great there, Rick!'

'Yeah dude! Stylish finish with that shortcut as well!' Jam added to it.

Linda also nodded along. 'You did very well there with a Free Style board.'

'Aww, thanks for the compliments, guys, but it was mere luck on my side that I won there.' Rick scratched his head a bit in friendlyness overblown by the compliments. 'Rick, you're a very good snowboarder as you showed there, it wasn't just luck!' Wendy pointed out to Rick.

Rick thought about that, and he felt Wendy was right, he did have skills, and for a first winning race, he performed quite well.

As they all walked back to the hotel for now, Rick spotted that Damien wasn't around, which dissapointed him slightly, he really wanted to know if he saw the race and showed off what he learned back last night, walking over to Slash who was chatting up with Jam. 'Hey Slash, you've seen Damien around here?'

Slash shrugged and lifted his shoulders up. 'Beats me, as long as he isn't causing trouble.' 'Yeah, I hope so too...' Rick nodded along, but he then remembered something. 'Hey, Slash, don't you have your race with Linda and Nicole in about 2 hours from now as well?'

'Aw, man, forgot about that! I still have to practice up a bit before that! Thanks for reminding me, Rick!' He then ran off on a quicker pace towards the hotel. At that same time, Nicole approached Linda, whispering to her: 'You better practice up yourself as well for kissing him, Linda!' quietly grinning at her teasing remark. 'Oh, really funny, Couch!' I don't need to practice up for the race because I know I'll win!' She bragged.

As the rest arrived at the hotel, they all went their seperate ways to do stuff, while Rick and Jam headed for their rooms, chatting up a bit between themselves. 'So, I've heard from Slash this morning you've been practicing on Practice Hills as well?' He questioned with a interesting look.

'Sure am, dude!' Jam grinned. 'I've been perfecting my stunt moves in order to show the audience what the Trick Master can do!'

Suddenly their chat was interrupted as one of the hotel managers runned towards them, stopping in front panting a bit and was covered in cake cream a bit.

'Sorry to interrupt you, but have you seen some green-colored kid passing by? Me and the other hotel staff members were celebrating the 30th birthday of a colleague of us and that boy blew up the birthday cake and runned off with a piece of the cake as well.'

Rick and Jam immediatly knew who he was talking about, but neither of them knew where he was, Rick just shrugging. 'Eh, sorry, no. But we'll keep a lookout for him.' 'Thanks, no if you would excuse me...' He then ran off further down the hallway searching around. Rick and Jam headed for their room and opened up the door, but as they headed for the sofa to relax a bit before the next race would start, they saw Damien sitting there munching off a piece of strawberry-flavoured cake while watching TV.

'Huh? Damien?! Don't tell me you stole that cake and blew up the rest of it!' Rick shouted to him a bit upset at his behaviour. Damien looked around and responded after he swallowed a piece. 'How'd you know about it?' 'One of the hotel managers was looking for you while we were returning from the race I just had.' Damien shrugged his head a bit and continued to munch. 'Oh, that guy. I was just very hungry and he wouldn't let me eat off the cake when I asked him to, so if I can't have cake, they won't as well! Heheheh!!' Both Rick and Jam shrugged at it looking a bit down, before Jam tapped him on the shoulder. 'Hey, I'm going down for some food and then go see Slash and practice up with him a bit. You coming along?'

'No thanks, I'm not hungry right now, but good luck on the training. I'll be there to watch the next race as well, though!' Rick smiled back.

'OK, seeya there!' Jam runned off with his snowboard in hand.

Rick then sat down next to Damien, sighing a bit about what he did, but Damien then turned his head to him. 'So, Slash's race is up next, huh?' 'Yeah, but where were you when I was going to race? I was hoping you were there to witness how I won there!' Damien then swallowed his last piece and looked to him with slight amazement in his eyes. 'You won there? Congrats on that! And sorry, but I went to the toilet after you left the room this morning and was starving from hunger afterwards, then I came back here to sleep some more after eating.' Rick lightened up a bit towards Damien. 'Well, thanks for complimenting me on my victory there, but I couldn't have done it without your practice last night! But please don't do anything mischievous around here anymore or we'll be kicked out!' Rick warned Damien as politely as possible.

'Yeah, yeah, sorry about that... hey, there's some cartoons coming up next, you wanna sit back and kill the time until we head off for that race spiky boy's gonna have?' Rick headed to the door. 'Sure, but I'll be right back, gonna get some afternoon lunch in first.'

The rest of the kids were all doing their own thing for the next hour. Rick and Damien were on their room enjoying some TV, Slash and Jam were practicing up a bit for the next race, Tommy was eating in the lunch room, Ruby doing some muscle training to vent his frustration from the loss, and Linda and Nicole were on their rooms studying the course they would race on, with Pamela, Nancy and Wendy talking up a bit about how the previous race went.


	8. Chapter 8: Rival Race on River Rapids

Then it was around 1:00 PM, and the others all met up back at the hotel entrance and headed for the 2nd course the next race would be held on, River Rapids. From the description it said in the book, it was part of a long waterslide attraction of a nature-themed amusement park, but it's in it's construction stages, though the water slide ride was nearly completed, and it was permitted to be used as part of the Tournament. After the river part which has alot of small left and right curves, it's a basic straight road with some small pits to the left and right in the ground towards the park entrance, which for this tournament was set up ironically as the finish. So in basic outlay to Slash and the rest it was just like the Water slide ride in Dizzy Land, except more wider and longer with some ground to the finish afterwards.

When they entered through the park gates after roughly 25 minutes of walking to the park, they were greeted by another bunch of men with the organization. 'Ah, just in time! I take it you all are the contestants for the 2nd race, right?' Slash, Linda and Nicole all nodding in agreement. 'Okay, please head that way to the specially placed liftchairs for the start entrance at the top. For the others, there are tribunes placed around the course, from which you can oversee it all!' The rest sitting on various places in a groups as the race would soon start.

As Slash, Linda and Nicole rode up the chairlift to the top of the attraction, not really so high, more a open-fielded river ride with low shallow water serving for the ground and course design, they soon arrived on the top within 30 seconds, and got off to the right where there was the starting line. Getting ready before it, Linda and Nicole glared one more time at each other before the race.

'Heh, now it has come so far, Linda. The time to show everybody here that I'm way better than you!' Nicole sneezed as she placed her snowboard on the ground and stood ready in her usual snowboarding outfit consisting of a black bodysuit with pink boots, red gloves and a high blue neck collar sticking out.

Linda was ready on hers wearing her own usual outfit which she wore during both the first 2 tournaments consisting of her leopard pants with white boots, yellow gloves and a red top bikini, though this time didn't wear her hat and snowboarding glasses. 'Hmph, in your dreams, Couch! This is MY time to shine, to humiliate you and beat you as a nice bonus, Slash!' Then grinning towards him.

'Oh yeah? Don't be so sure, Linda! I've been training hard in order to get back at you for what happened on Rookie Mountain! I'll be the one to bag this race!' Slash growled back at her standing in a orange flame-designed vest with the rest of his outfit his usual snowboarding gear save for the glass wear. The 3 were all determined to win, and all stood ready on their All Around boards, before the announcer would speak up:

'Welcome to the 2nd Shinehill Valley Tournament race, hosted by Frost Entertainment Enterprises! This here's River Rapids, a ride part of a still-in-construction nature theme park. The course here consists of mainly the water slide ride which is designed in the form of a natural river, but with very shallow water to act as the course ground, and there are spots where there's solid ground in order to stunt off. The key here is able to turn and gain speed in conjunction with the water flow. After the water slide segment there's just a straight piece of road to the finish, but it has several gaps in it, so be careful not to fall off. If you fall in it, the copters will quickly set you back. The track itself is 840 meters long. Are you all ready....'

The rest leaned in their jumping positions, all prepared to jump forward and get a good start...

'...GO!!' All 3 of them pushed forward, immediatly proceeding up to the first stunting slope which would follow up to the main water slide course. Both Nicole and Linda went up there equally fast, and Linda performed a spinning board grab stunt in vertical direction with Nicole doing a slow-going vertical spin, both landing graciously on the ground and continuing, while Slash did his trademark Slash Dynamite stunt where he himself spinned around in a clockwise-manner twice before landing, but he leaned forward a bit in order to catch up to Nicole and Linda...

As they entered the fast water flow of the ride, they felt their boards all splashing with water drips around their feet, but continued on, heading for the a slight left arching turn which had a red item box on it. Linda and Nicole pushed each other in order to get to the red box first and push the other out of the way, but in the end, both pushed each other out of the box way, neither getting the box, and both yelled at each other frustration. 'Walk to the moon, Couch!' 'Oh, shut up, Maltinie!' Though as they bickered, they didn't notice the next turn was a sharp right one, with Nicole to the right trying to lean right to go along the flow, but bumped against the wall and fell down, while Linda on the left barely managed to turn along with the flow and avoid Nicole, heading forward.

Slash passed by Nicole, having grabbed from the red box his first trio of slapsticks, and was about to trail after Linda. Nicole however, wasn't so happy and stood up from the water quickly fixing her hair a bit and continued on, determined to get back at Linda. Linda herself was about to come to a slight swerving part with left and right-going currents as it had small hills on it. This would be a part where keeping balance was necessary, but before that she managed to grab from a blue item box a rock, which she could use to drop later on... Slash gained from the box a invisibility item.

Linda tried to go along the flow and keeping her balance on the hills in the turns, and dropped her rock at the 2nd right turn on it. Though while she was focussing, she didn't know Slash aimed a slapstick at her, and with it's sharp accuracy hitted her causing her to trip over and hit the wall falling with her face in the water. Slash grinned as he passed by. 'Hahaha! Like the water, Li--WAAHH!!' He didn't notice the rock she dropped and fell in the water himself as well. While Linda managed to recover, and as much as she wanted to gloat over the backfire, she had to focus on the race, and jumped forward in order to get a good distance from Slash before he recovered.

Though Nicole already passed Slash right as he stood back in place, herself having no real trouble with navigating the turns and was now in a good small distance with Linda. Slash jumped forward and tried to use the inner turns of the flow to keep along, not knowing what item Nicole got, but he held his invisibility item ready for that occasion... Though as Linda was approaching the nearest red box before another stunting slope, she stood ready in a jumping position, and in the trajectory got a few parachutes as her weapons, and was ready to make a stunt, but in mid-air, BAM! she was hit by a pan and fell to the ground, while she coud hear Nicole giggling as she stunted off the slope in a vertical spin. Outrageous, she stood up, determined to get back at Nicole for that, and jumped off to set after her...

Slash himself used the invisibility in time to avoid Nicole's pan, but wanted new weapons instead of slapsticks, and got a trio of tornoado's, which wasn't so bad. He then jumped off doing a diagonal spinning jump, landing well and turned left sharply with the current as they re-entered the water ride for the last time, seeing the next few turns were a sharp left turn followed by a small straight path and then a sharp right one. He turned around the left one fairly well, before he saw Nicole in the distance aiming something at Linda, but Slash decided to intervere, and threw a tornado in her direction, which hitted and she got propelled upwards before landing in the water with a thud, the weapon she help dropping in the water as well.

Slash passed by and picked it up, revealing to be 3 bombs, which could prove useful, and he took the right turn as well as he saw Linda doing it while losing some slight speed in the process with her turning. Nicole in the meantime was trailing behind once more and decided to focus intensively on the shortcuts in order to catch up with Slash...

Linda saw she was approaching a set of both a red and blue item boxes after each other before the exit of the water slide with a stunting slope, all on a slight right-benching turn. Doing so, she had to sacrifice her parachutes for ice shots, and got a ghost for a item, and before the slope, did one last diagonal spinning trick. Though just as she landed, she saw the last piece of straight road ahead with a few gaps placed inbetween them, calling from some serious steering. Slash followed up 3 seconds later with getting from the blue box a fan, while he dodged the red box due to his better steering abillity than the 2 rich girls. Doing a horizontal stunt before he left the slide as well, he then noticed he was ghosted, and would soon lose track of Linda.

Though Linda laughed in a snobby manner feeling confident she would win soon, she was then ghosted herself as well, both her and Slash going equally slow now. She suspected Slash to be the one to do this, but it was actually Nicole, who herself got one from the blue item box with slapsticks from the red one.

'Not so fast, Linda!!' She shouted as she jumped off the slope, using it's steep side to her advantage to gain speed, she was first coming up to Slash, who she threw a slapstick to, hitting him and he fell to the ground, though quickly regained feet as he could just saw how she passed him and was nearing Linda near the finish over a short distance, and then the ghost around them both disappeared.

Slash meant serious buisness now, not intending to losee once more, and activated his fan to get a quick start. He moved up fast to Nicole, who he held a low profile to until he saw the chance near the gaps to throw a bomb at a safe distance to. The bomb hitting her while focussing on soon turning, and got blasted upwards and then falling down one of the holes in the water, and got lifted within a few seconds by a robo-copter, her chance of winning now really over, it was now between him and Linda, who he also approached after cornering the gaps ready to throw a bomb as she was close to the finish...

Though he then suddenly got reminded back on how he lost in a similar situation like this on Rookie Mountain, and then quickly thinked up a plan in his head...

'Linda, take this!!' He shouted and throwed his second bomb at her. Linda looking backwards as he throwed the bomb, she smirked still knowing how to deflect projectiles, and just at the right timing, did a jump and a board grab deflecting the bomb. 'You never learn, do you Slash?'

'In contrary, Linda, I do!' He then grinned back, actually anticipating she would deflect it, he then jumped up himself, throwed his last bomb immediatly and curved to the far right of the track as the bomb then aimid for Linda, who was just landing, and panicking from the other bomb hitting her, she was launched upwards as she couldn't have enough time to dodge the last one, and hitted the ground, then got hit by a slapstick by Nicole who then passed her. As she rolled forwards a mere meter away from the finish, she could witness Nicole just crossing the entrance of the park as 2nd, and incredibly furious at this loss, decided to toss all her ice shots at both Slash and Nicole before crossing the finish line herself in 3rd.

And just as they both broke out of the ice, they heard the announcer say through the speakers: 'FINISH!! This race's winner is Slash Kamei!'

'WOOHOOO!!!! ALRIGHT!!!!' Slash yelled with excitement sticking his thumbs up as he heard he crowd applauding him on his victory. Nicole and Linda on the other hand, were outraged, blaming each other for losing, while Linda forgot it was Slash who dealt the finishing blow to her otherwise 1st place victory lead.

'Heheheh, look who lost NOW, huh, Linda?!!' Slash laughed with the most 'take that!!' expression he could show on his face, with Linda simply growling her teeth in anger and stomped on the ground, before a mere few seconds later she suddenly calmed down, picked up her snowboard and was preparing to leave. '...Bah, today may be your day in the shinelight, Slash, but I look forward to our rematch!' She told him off before she attempted to walk away, and so did Nicole. But to their suprise they saw that Pamela stood near the entrance all along as the race ended, and moved towards the rich girls with a sneaky smile on her face, both Linda and Nicole not sure what she was up to now.

'Wait a minute, girls, where'd you think you're going off all so fast?' She said with a teasing tone. 'What is it, Pamela? I'm really not in the mood for a talk right now.' Linda said with a slight irritated look on her face. 'Yes, we just lost from Slash!' Nicole added along.

'Ah, but you see, that's the point!' Pamela stuck up a index finger with her eyes closed in a thinking manner. 'Remember what you two betted each other on last night?' Linda thought about it for a split second, then remembered it. 'Oh, we betted that if Nicole lost, she would kiss Tommy, and if I would lose, I must have done with the same with Slash.' Pamela then interrupted her. 'That's right, you BOTH lost!'

Linda and Nicole then were confused by what Pamela was trying to say. 'What exactly are you trying to say, Pamela?' Nicole asked with a odd expression on her face.

'You two never told each other specifically that the one would have to win over the other in order to live up to the promise. You clearly said you would do that if you lost, and now you both have lost from Slash, which means that both of you have to live up to your promises!'

After telling that, Nicole and Linda both looked at each other with the most awkward expressions they could show, since they both realized Pamela was right on that. her adding to it: 'I'm looking forward to tonight when I can get to photograph you two lovebirds!'

Linda and Nicole then walked off in the direction of the hotel with a baffled expression that was mixed with sadness in their eyes.

Slash after bathing in his victory, noticed that Linda and Nicole were walking off all depressed, and saw Pamela heading his way, along with the rest of the gang who saw it all. 'What's up with those 2?' He asked to her pointing to the 2 rich girls.

Pamela just giggled a bit, before responding in a hinting manner: 'Oh, they have been reminded on something they promised each other... you better stay up tonight, as you're gonna get a sweet suprise, Slash!' Him just shrugging lifting his shoulders up, not getting what she was saying with that...

Jam runned up to him and high-fived his best friend. 'Hey, sweet finish there, Slash!' He smiled towards him. 'Thanks, Jam! Now I finally showed up to that Linda, heheheh!' He smirked in response. The rest also congratulated on his victory, save for Damien, who just stood there and shrugged his head, thinking Slash was just a showoff.

As they then returned back to the hotel to plan up on the next race, by the time they arrived it was around 2:10 PM. As the girls went back to their room to talk further, Nicole and Linda already sitting on the sofa still with speechless epressions on their face, and Nancy studying up her own race's course design in the meantime, the boys in their rooms were talking up a bit as well, Jam still happy that Slash won the race, while Rick, Tommy and Ruby were watching something on TV in the meantime, and Damien was sitting on Rick's bed looking at his own map for the race to come...

'Well, I'm gonna sharpen up a bit before the next race, Slash!' Jam then broke off their conversation. 'I'm not planning to lose this tournament either, and I've been looking at the map long enough!' Grinning as he left after about 5 minutes with his snowboard in hand. Rick who noticed Jam left overhearing his conversation with Slash, walked over and tapped Damien on the shoulders. 'Hey, Damien. Aren't you gonna practice up for the race as well? Now there's still time to sharpen up a bit before you face off.' Damien then stepped off the bed towards the closet, looking with a determined expression. 'Yeah, I've been looking at that map for my own race long enough! Time to practice up and then win this tournament, hahaha!' And with that, Damien grabbed Rick's All Around snowboard and runned out of the room as well, Rick and Slash both looking at each other with a shoulder lifting expression. 'Well, at least he's determined to win this...'


	9. Chapter 9: Slippy Stunting Race

After roughly 40 minutes, as it was 3:00 PM, while the boys and girls were still doing their own thing, suddenly at the boy's room Jam and Damien walked in, both avoiding eye contact with each other. Rick noticed it, asking them both: 'What happened between you two?'

Jam just grunted and walked over to his closet to get dressed in another outfit for the race. Damien responded in a annoyed mood. 'I was just trying to practice up own my own when that jerk throwed a snowball in the back of my head, so I retalliated and we spended about 10 minutes chasing each other on the course throwing snowballs at each other until we saw the race was about to start!' Rick sighed at the explanation and tried to move on to another subject.

'Well, aside from the fight between you two, did the practice go well?' Damien nodded his head vertically slightly. 'I guess so. I'm all ready to win this one!' Then smiling showing his fangs with a sneaky expression. Jam walked by still looking slightly annoyed at Damien and the rest soon followed. As the boys met up with the girls in the hallway, they proceeded to walk out of the hotel once more, Nicole and Linda in a slightly better mood now, and Wendy used her book to figure out where the route for the next course would be. It was just on the outskirts of Shinehill Valley's vacation resort, a rough 20-minute walk out of here as well.

While on their way, Damien noticed Rick was chatting up a bit with Slash concerning their hobbies, and looked around to see Nancy walking all alone. Him now thinking it would be a chance to try and talk with her, he tried to approach her, but right then, Jam caught up to Nancy sooner and the two talked about the upcoming race, with Jam boasting about how he learned a new trick or 2. Damien looked by grunting a bit and glaring towards Jam, thinking in himself. 'You pester me with snowballs and now you also ruin my chance to talk with Nancy?! I'm SO going to beat you in this race, Jam!'

After the walk, they arrived on what looked like a snow field with a few artificial ice mountains made with it. Not knowing why it would be here, but they followed the map instructions to where the starting line was, once again greeted by members of the tournament planning organization. 'Hello there, you 3 over there are the contestants for the 3rd race, right?' Damien, Nancy and Jam all stepped forward and nodded. 'Yep!'

The man then checked his list again. 'Hmm.. ah, yes! Please for the contestants, head over there, the race is about to start in 3 minutes!' He pointed towards the nearby starting line. 'As for the rest of you, that route over there follows up the mountain so you can get a good overview of the entire race, other spectators are also there!'

While Slash and the rest followed the way the man showed, Jam, Nancy and Damien all headed towards the starting line. As they placed their boards on the artificial snow, they looked at each other's boards. Damien was using Rick's All Around board, something he was familiar with by now, while Jam used a Alpine one to compensate for his slight slow speed and more focus on turning, clearly intending to win this race while claiming he was going to show off tricks, and Nancy used a All Around board as well.

'Hey, Damien! Don't try to throw a snowball at me, or I'll deflect it back to you!' Jam grinned towards him. Damien in response looked irritated and shouted back to him: 'Grr, don't get so confident, Jam! By the end of this, I'll have you buried in the snow, graaghh!!' Jam looked with a teasing expression back to him: 'Heh, see if you can catch me first! You didn't do all that well back at Ice Land when you decided to take us all on in a race and even when you cheated back in Dizzy Land you still lost from me!' He then turned his head over to Nancy who was standing right of Damien. 'And I'll show everybody here that I am the REAL Trick Master, Nance! Your glory will be mine!' Laughing softly in his boasting claim.

Nancy just shrugged her head, not believing that Jam was still focussed on that one goal after all this time, she then said something to Damien: 'Don't worry, Damien. If you just do your best I'm already happy.' Damien blushed a bit from Nancy's friendly remark, but turned his head away to avoid her seeing him like that, managing to softly speak out: 'Oh um, thanks Nancy...'

Then the announcer voice came from a nearby speaker:

'Welcome to the semi-final race of the first round. The area here is Slippy Slopeside, a project set up by nature preservers in order to create a living enviroment for creatures needing to survive in the cold like penguins and polar bears. Frost Enterprises promised careful treatment of the area for the racing. This course's outlay is a bit different from the others. First you start off at the snow fields, which then take you to a part where you have to enter in the inside of mountains through a small cavern, before having to jump over slopes in order to make it to the next field, so building up speed is essential, if you fall in the snow-filled cliff gaps, you know who will pick you up by now if you witnessed the other races. Though after the brief field part you will come across glaciers with a sharp turn, so better steer well, and right there after you come to a straight piece of road before the final jump over a cold lake, and then a last sharp turn to the right where the finish is! Oh, and the course is about 900 meters long.

As Slash and the others in the meantime got up one of the mountains and got a view over the whole course, they stood by as the race was just about to start...

'Are you ready?....GO!!'

Jam zipped by with instant jumping reflexes, while Nancy and Damien both started off at a medium speed. As Jam turned a slight right corner, he saw the first stunting slope and decided to pull off one of his basic moves first to show off, a double spin horizontally, before landing and continuing on into the snow fields...

Meanwhile Damien and Nancy both jumped at the same time, Nancy doing a double vertical spin but Damien just doing a diagonal one, before landing on the ground. Damien shaked around on his feet a bit trying to keep balance as the snow felt a bit slippery, but he adjusted himself quickly, having raced on familiar territory in Ice Land before.

Jam approached one of the smaller heaps of snow lying around with a blue item box visible on it, and did a board grab in the air as he grabbed the box, nabbing a ghost, which he decided to use on Nancy right away, which slowed her down, making Damien gain 2nd place a bit. Nancy therefore ignored the blue item stunt opportunity focussing on gaining speed and grabbed a near by red box on the ground to the left, and got a trio of ice shots. Damien himself also stunted of the heap of snow, but because he focussed too much on the stunt, halfway through his double vertical flip, he fell in the snow, and buried himself out a bit grunting before getting back up his feet, but felt that he got a fan from the box, which he immediatly used to gain speed.

Jam saw that the cave part wasn't so far away anymore after a few more slight left and right arcs awaited him, but as he didn't pay attention, he felt himself suddenly frozen on the track, Nncy zipping by as the ghost around her vanished, regaining her normal speed pace. After Jam broke out, as he got up he heard a motor noise and saw how Damien zipped by quickly, him sticking his tongue out to him in a teasing manner. 'Grr, just you wait!' And with that Jam jumped forward again, attempting to catch up with them...

As Nancy approached the slight left arc, she steered along nicely over the snow, and saw a blue item box near the right one in the inner corner, taking that turn up close and got herself an invisibility item, saving it for later. Damien also had no real trouble navigating it, and got from the box a ghost himself as well, which he then decided to use on Nancy himself as well. She panicked as she approached the cave part, and suddenly another ghost slowed her down. Jam not far behind Damien grabbed a pan, though had to wait to use it as he had to adjust himself back in place when turning with the Alpine Board.

Now Nancy and Damien were in a short dark cave with various lights hung up thee, but saw in the distance daylight and that the ground was going more steeper downhill, meaning this was to prepare for the jump. Though just as the ghost around Nancy dissapeared and Damien started to get close to her, suddenly a pan appeared above their heads! Nancy immediatly used her invisibility item and dodged it, but Damien wasn't so lucky to have one, and fell down for a few seconds feeling a bump on his head, plus the pan was still on his head, feeling it got stuck there thanks to his horns!

'Grr... why must that always happen to me?' He groaned as he pulled off the pan from his horns and tossed it aside, then saw Nancy jumping doing a trick he couldn't see, and Jam zipped past him, going a a fast pace to the stunting slope. Damien hopped forward in a angry expression wanting to get back at Jam at all costs, and saw Jam doing a board grab with both his hands, and curled up his body as he spinned around, before landing with style. Damien wanted to do an impressive jump stunt as well for his first time, and leaning forward in a jumping position, jumped at the right time as he saw himself flying past the opening of a mountain, over a big gap of snow, and did a triple diagonal flip, where at the end, he let out a loud-pitched roar. Landing correctly he then continued on straight until he saw blue ice covering the field as it bended to the left....

Nancy and Jam tried to steer to the left while keeping their boards in balance, feeling minor bumps in the ice lifted them upwards, though they had similar experience in Jingle Town before, so it wasn't all difficult to them. Along the way, they saw various red and blue boxes on the outlines, though Nancy tried to focus on turning the inner side of the arc to avoid losing speed and fall out of balance, not getting any of the boxes. Though Jam attempted to steer using the hills to his advantgae in order to adjust his board in mid-air, and got himself from a red and blue box a fan and a bunch of snowman heads. His eyes glimmering, he waited until they reached the end of the slippery ice...

Damien in the meantime also tried to keep his balance, but he never rided on ice before, so he had slight trouble keeping his feet, and wiggled his arms around trying not to fall. But with some tough managing, navigated himself past the slippery turn, and got in the process from a red box a trio of parachutes, and a rocket. He smirked as this would be his comeback time as he soon saw as he exited the ice part that he was on a straight piece of road for about 7 seconds, with Jam and Nancy not far away from him going for the last slope stunt...

Though as they saw that the next slope stunt was going over the ice-cold lake, before they would be close to the finish, Jam smirked as he then put on his fan, and aimed a snowman at Nancy, it bouncing off the wall and right into her. 'EEP!!' Nancy yelped as she was suddenly trapped in snow while still heading forward in a straight angle towards the slope, and couldn't see anything either, though she could hear Jam teasing her saying: 'Goodbye, Nance! I'm heading for the finish!' Then laughing as he boosted forward and just attempted another double vertical flip stunt as he landed past the lake on solid ground. Meanwhile, Damien also saw what happened and quickly used the boost of his rocket to launch forward, about to jump as well, but he then had thoughts about Nancy.

'Wait a minute, that water is ice cold! And Nancy isn't wearing any thick clothing! If she falls in it...' He then throwed something in her direction before jumping off the stunt slope doing a horizontal flip and making it over the lake...

Nancy then managed to break out of the snowman, but panicked as she saw she was mere moments away from falling in the water, and didn't have enough time to jump over it. 'WAAH!!!' Though just as she was about to fall, she suddenly felt herself being launched upwards in the air, and then slowly descending, finding out she had a parachute hitting her. Though with the wind current, it blew her towards the ground on the course past the lake, and waited a few seconds before she landed and continued on, though wondering who launched her into the air like that...

In the meantime, Jam was approaching the finish after one last sharp turn to the right, and saw the finish within sight, smirking with happyness as he told himself: 'YES! I'm going to win plus I beated Nancy!' Though just as he had thoughts about his victory, he then heard something approaching, and turned his around--FWOOP! With that, Jam was launched in the air with a parachute, and slowly descended to the ground as well. His happy expression within a mere second turning suprised, he heard Damien laughing and heading for the goal. Outraged by this, Jam throwed from the air a snowman in Damien's direction.

'Heheheh!! Huh? GWAAHHH!!' He felt himself suddenly cased in snow as he headed down the straight path towards the finish. Suddenly hitting a wall and became unconscious for a few seconds, he then stood up and saw he crossed the finish as first, then saw Jam haeding his way, though he got frozen by a ice shot from Nancy, who came in as 2nd, before Jam jumped all irritated to last place.

'FINISH!!! The winner of this race is... Damien!' The announcer then shouted.

Damien felt a satisfying smirk on his face emerging, and jumped in the air raising his fist. 'OH YEAH, OH YEAH!!! WHO'S BAD?! I'M BAD!!! HAHAHAHA!!!' He yelled as he finally won a race for once, obviously all exited about it. Though Nancy looked at the ground with a puzzled look on her face, while Jam throwed his hat on the ground in anger groaning at his last-second defeat.

'I got hit with a snowman head by Jam, who then jumped over the lake, so he couldn't have launched that parachute. It must have been Damien who did that while I could hear him passing with a rocket!' Nancy thought in herself as she looked towards a still excited Damien. 'But, why would he have wasted that parachute on me? There was nothing to be gained by hitting me since I was about to fall in the water myself.'

Though Damien then walked off thinking in himself: 'Heh, one step closer to that 150.000 G. prize!' Jam calmed down and then followed along a bit dissapointed and grabbed his hat, with Nancy also coming along as they took a small route back to the starting line...

At the starting line, everybody was waiting for them to arrive, all amazed at how Damien managed to win a race for once, and in a tournament of all things. Slash and Tommy greeted Jam first, telling him it was a good race anyway to make him feel better, while Rick smiled to Damien. 'Congrats on your win there!' Damien smirked back. 'Heheheh, thanks, but don't expect me to go easy on you in the finale tomorrow, Rick!' Wendy and Linda also approached Damien.

'Wow, Damien, I never expected you to win of all things, to be honest. Looks like you're really improving.' Wendy commented with her glasses a bit lowered.

'Me neither. Though I doubt you'll ever be as fast me.' Linda bragged a bit.

Then all of a sudden, the announcer spoke through the speakers once more. 'Attention. All spectators of the 4th race must stay home, and zap to channel 4 for watching the race at 6:30 PM if they're interested. A special live broadcast from around the area will be seen there, for reasons explained at that time. Thanks for your attention!'

The gang then headed away from the area back to the hotel once more to plan up for the last race of the day, and deciding to eat something before the last race would occur. Tommy already looking forward to dinner. Tohugh as they were on their way, Jam approached Damien, and didn't have a hostile attitude this time. 'Hey, Damien.' The demon kid then turned his head around. 'What is it?'

'Well, I wanted to apologize for being a jerk back there. You were really good in that race, plus I heard from the others you did a pretty cool trick there before the ice part.' Damien smiled a bit hearing that from Jam. 'Ah, that's actually nice of ya, thanks!'

Though Nancy then also approached Damien, questioning him. 'Eh, Damien, back there in the race, why did you shoot me with a parachute when I was about to fall in the water?' Damien sweated a bit from that question, and tried to sound as convincing as possible. 'Well, eh, I did that to avoid you getting a cold, you were the only one to wear such a thin costume, so I decided to help you out on that and avoid a evening in bed!' Nancy was a bit suprised from that remark, and smiled. 'Well, thanks for doing that, Damien.' He blushed a bit and stayed quiet after that. Though Rick, who overheard it, snickered a bit in himself, knowing the real reason why he did that to Nancy...

As they all arrived back at the hotel after about 20 minutes of walking, they saw it was now 4:00 PM, and they all agreed on that they would watch the race that would be held at 6:30, while Wendy and Pamela would first study their course maps a bit for a half hour in their room while the boys went out to their room to enjoy themselves.


	10. Chapter 10: Mansion Madness

At the boys' room, Rick, Slash, Damien and Jam were playing a racing game on a Ninetechno Starsky 4 system they found in drawer of where the TV stood atop, enjoying themselves. Tommy was drinking a can of root beer he bought from a vending machine nearby before they entered the hotel, and Ruby was just reading some exercise magazines.

Meanwhile, at the girls' room, while Wendy and Pamela were both looking at a map of the course they would race on, apparently a very large mansion just about 10 minutes away from the hotel located in one of the streets in a living place area of Shinehill Valley, Nancy was busy preparing something to drink for the others, and Linda and Nicole were talking about the latest trends, apparently not fighting or arguing for once.

'Say, Wendy, what would you think of taking up practice for a half hour on Practice Hills after about 20 minutes? I saw Rick and Damien practicing there last night and it apparently really helped them there, seeing as how they both won today's races.' Pamela suggested to Wendy, who then looked up from her studying expression. 'Sure, sounds good. Should help us with preparing for that Shinobin guy you told me about.'

And so, after they all drinked something at the table, Pamela and Wendy went for the door with their snowboards in their arms, preparing to train on the hills a bit for the race. Though as they headed down the hallway, they encountered Rick holding a few root beer bottles in his hand. 'Hey there, Rick!' Wendy shouted to him. 'Are you really that thirsty?' Pamela joked, to which Rick smiled in return. 'Heheh, not really. I was just bringing in some soda the guys asked for inbetween our rounds on a racing game.' He then noted the snowboards they were holding. 'Let me guess, you're off to Practice Hills?'

'Yes, indeed.' Pamela replied. 'We want to prepare ourselves early on, you never know what that Shinobin guy can pull out.'

Rick saw this as a opportunity, and asked her: 'Oh, mind if I come along? I need to sharpen up my skills for tomorrow as well.' She smiled and replied back. 'Sure, would be really helpful! Well, we're off. See you there, Rick!' And with that, Pamela and Wendy walked off, Wendy looking quickly behind her as she could just see Rick giving a thumbs up to her with a satisfying grin, knowing what he meant by that.

As Rick then arrived back at the boy's room with the soda in hand, he then putted it near the sofa, grabbed his snowboard and went for the door. Slash remarked to him: 'Hey, where are you going to, Rick? Aren't you gonna race us again?'

'Sorry guys, but I'm going for some training with Pamela and Wendy, gotta improve a bit for tomorrow.' He turned his head to Tommy. 'Hey, Tommy. You like to race in my place?' Tommy nodded and sat by the others, taking in Rick's place, while he went off.

After a bit of walking, he found Practice Hills once more, and saw it wasn't very populated much with snowbording people as it wasfairly late around this hour of 17:10 PM. He took the chairlift up to the top, and once there waited for Pamela and Wendy to arrive, him being a bit anxious to talk to Pamela once more.

After 5 minutes of waiting while looking around, he saw Pamela approaching him. 'Hey, Rick!' She stepped off her board. 'Hey, Pamela. Is Wendy there as well?' He pointed to a chairlift approaching, and it was indeed Wendy who then stepped off, also greeting him. 'So, how's it going so far?' Pamela told him they were so far practicing on turning as short as possible around curves and doing some stunts. Rick told them about deflecting practicing he and Damien did last night, and they agreed on letting him throw snowballs at them and them focussing on dodging and deflecting them back, pretending they're part of an actual race and he has projectiles to throw at them.

About a half hour later, they were done with practicing, and stood near the entrance waiting for Wendy to come down after one last attempt to reach the goal as quickly as possible. Rick in the meantime was chatting up a bit with Pamela. 'What, really?! They dared each other to kiss those two?'

'Yep, but I catched them on that they both lost during the 2nd race, and now tonight they'l have to do it and I'll be there to photograph it as evidence!'

Rick laughed hard at the sheer image of it. 'Oh, man, I gotta be there as well! No way am I gonna miss out on that! Oh, that reminds me, I saw while browsing through the book about the courses that there's going to be a festival tonight not far away from the hotel in the streets nearby where you're going to race soon, complete with rides to enjoy yourself and tents to win prizes at. What if we all went there and you can go in something that a few people can enter in to be alone for a while, and then photograph them on that spot?' Rick suggested to Pamela.

'Ah, that sounds good. Thanks for the advice!' They then saw Wendy approaching them, and stepped off her snowboard. 'There, all done, and ready for the race soon!' She smirked. They all looked at the nearby tower clock, seeing it was 17:50 by now, and walked back to the hotel while chatting up amongst themselves a bit more, until they arrived at their rooms there again. Rick stopped at his. 'Well, I gotta go check up on the boys, see if they haven't drunk themselves so full of soda to have dinner.' He joked. 'Heheh, well, hope you'll get to watch us at the race in a half hour, Rick!' Pamela replied.

'Will do! Hope you win!' He smiled to her, with Wendy hearing that. 'Hey, what about me?!' She said a bit irritated. 'Oh, sorry, I hope you'll do your best too, Wendy!' He scratched a bit behind his head in awkwardness of himself, the girls both laughing and headed off. Rick stepped in his room and sat down with the other boys as they were now playing another game, and 2 bottles already up, Slash growling to Damien: 'Darn it, Damien! Stop aiming for me the entire time!'

Meanwhile, at the 8th floor, in another room, a certain ninja was focussing on preparing himself for the next race, with Kaede stepping in through the window having brought some early dinner with her. 'Hey, brother! I got some food again to eat, you want some?'

Shinobin just sat on the ground, his left eye opening and mumbling in slight irritated tone: '...No thanks, I need to focus on winning the next race, I WILL get that prize money, even if you're out of the tournament...' With that remark, Kaede sighed a bit. 'Look, I'm really sorry for losing that race, but I couldn't have suspected that Rick boy would attempt such a high-risk boost shortcut.'

Shinobin then stood up and walked towards the window once more crossing his arms. 'Hmm... that Rick kid may cause trouble... I have to watch out for him indeed.'

He then titled his head towards the clock which was pointing at 18:20 PM. Shinobin grabbed his katana from the drawer next to his bed, and then stood ready, his yellow eyes glimmering in the dark sunset. 'It's time...' He then quickly jumped out of the window and disappeared in a flash, his sister just looking at him as he left, and muttered a bit looking towards the mansion in the distance. 'Good luck, brother!'

Meanwhile, Pamela and Wendy were also walking towards the mansion pointed on the map, which was about 10 minutes away from the hotel, thankfully close as they were a bit tired from all the walking they did today. The rest of the gang all turned the channel on their TV to channel 4 where the race would be broadcasted on. As they then arrived at what looked like a very large mansion, about roughly the same size as Linda's castle, they were once again greeted by those organization men and proceeded through the mansion up to the highest point on the 4th floor of it through a lift build in the house, and were then directed to the startling line at a balcony.

As they stood there, they were wondering where the 3rd contestant, Shinobin was at, and the race would start within a minute. Then all of a sudden, with black smoke emerging from where they stood, a figure then appeared before them. Pamela immediatly saw who it was. 'Ah, so you're here as well?'

Shinobin was standing there with his large kunai sword in hand, tossed it before the line, and stood on it with his arms crossed, muttering: '...Indeed...'

Wendy and Pamela stood ready as well on their boards, Pamela dressed in her green snowboarding suit and Wendy in her usual lab coat attire with blue pants and funny red shoes.

The announcer then spoke from one of the robo-copters, it having a speaker set up below it.

'Welcome to today's last race, Mansion Madness. The race will be held here in the mansion of Baron Von Waffonstein, who granted us permission to use his property as racing course. The mansion itself is large enough for a racing course, and it will take you from the balcony down a arching hallway straight to the dinner room where tables and seats will act as the obstacles, then it will connect in a extra constructed hallway to the ball room, where the chandeliers hang extra low to provide hindrance. After some few curvings to the main staircase you have to turn sharply to the back yard where you then have to navigate several bushes to the front entrance, and there is the finish. The track is roughly 750 meters long. Oh, and our robo-copters will fly around at a safe distance showing the race to all viewers at home. Are you ready.....GO!!'

Right as he heard it, Shinobin jumped forward at immediate speed, and going downhill in the hallway. Pamela and Wendy also went from a quick start, but arched right behind Shinobin who seemed to go faster than them on their All Around boards. On their way down the left-arching hallway, Shinobin got to a red box which granted him a set of slapsticks, feeling it in his pocket while still standing still with his arms crossed. Soon enough Pamela got through said red box and got parachutes and Wendy got ice shots, thoguh she wasn't planning to use them on Pamela yet as the hallway wasn't very large and she was really close, meaning it could very well crash her into the frozen girl as well.

After a small while they reached a very large dinner room where there stood fancy big round tables spread across the room, along with wooden seats as minor nuisances. Shinobin with his incredible agility managed to weave himself left and right across the tables with minimum effort, seeming to have lost no real speed at all, even managing to get a invisibility item from a nearby blue box, keeping it in case pans would go after him...

Though Pamela thought this as her chance to shoot a item to Shinobin, she fired a parachute in his direction. Though Shinobin already saw it coming and even while turning, jumped very quickly and high enough to avoid the shot, and kept moving without much speed lost towards next hallway. Wendy on the other hand, saw this as a opportunity while Pamela was busy avoiding the tables a bit further than her, Wendy shot a ice shot towards her, which connected and Pamela froze on the spot between the tables, Wendy moving forward and getting a ghost as her item as she soon also went down the hallway.

After being unfrozen, Pamela jumped forward and a mere 7 seconds later also went down the hallway with her item being a ghost, which she used on Shinobin right away. The ninja at the same time approaching a brief stunting slope of a steep small staircase, he jumped up and did a triple horizontal twist, landing on the ground and continuing on in the right and left-swerving hallway. Though he noticed a ghost appeared to slow him down, he didn't get scared at all, simply ignoring the ghost was around him and continuing on, now slowed down. Wendy came up close to him and now fired the 2 ice shots left, the 2nd a second later than the first one, thinking that upon landing Shinobin couldn't avoid that shot...

But the ninja also planned ahead for this, and in quick amazing display, managed to basically jump over the first, but right as the 2nd one was about to hit him, he then tilted the front tip of his board toward the ground in midair, and jumped again with the sole tip as launching point only, avoiding the 2nd one as well much to Wendy's suprise. Pamela also continued on but was a bit away from Wendy and Shinobin...

Then they arrived after the curves to the ball room, the chandeliers hanging extra low in order to make the racers also curve around them, but thankfully they weren't as close as the tables and chairs were in the previous room. Shinobin again took no effort in navigating the obstacles, and avoided any boxes at all costs, focussing on taking the turns as shortly as possible. Wendy was trailing behind him though she lost sight of him as he went down the next hallway, but she now got a fan from a nearby blue box, and decided to use it in hopes of catching up to the ninja once more, also getting a set of bombs from a red box.

Though now Pamela also was curving around the chandeliers without too much trouble, and got a set of pans from the blue box now, using it immediatly and saw that Wendy before the next hallway was hit and stunned for a few seconds, before she attempted to regain ground, but Pamela shot a parachute right afterwards, sending her in the air and Pamela zoomed by past her, now having a good 2nd place lead over her.

Shinobin while he was approaching the big staircase saw the pan above his head, and quickly used the invisibility item to avoid getting hit, then approached the large staircase and jumped off it, doing a vertical upside-down spin while rotating horizontally, doing his best move and then landing before he turned to the right in the sharp U-turn, even managing to not lose major speed with that turn, and continued on towards what seemed like the back yard entrance...

Pamela was now doing a stunt off the staircase, spinning diagonally, before landing and then doing a sharp turn with losing some speed and followed Shinobin a few 7 seconds behind in 2nd. Wendy then approached the staircase after Pamela left, but used the steep staircase to her advantage to try and regain some speed, then turning the U-turn without much loss of speed as well and all 3 were in the back yard now close to the finish...

Shinobin took a sharp turn to the right, taking from a nearby blue box a rock, and followed the right curving track on the grass towards what seemed like a small stunting slope from which he then did a basic left spinning flip, making it over the pond and then approaching a last piece of straight road filled with bushes for obstacles, him effortlessly avoiding it. Pamela trailed up close but got a blue fan this time as her sole item, and decided to use it, also making it past the pond stunting slope, and navigated with some slight effort the bushes, before she turned a sharp left corner and crossed the finish line, it being the entrance path to the mansion, and was 2nd, Shinobin apparently in 1st. Wendy trailed after her with a ghost which was pointless to use now anyway, and soon crossed as last.

'FINISH!! The winner of the last race is...Shinobin!'

The ninja upon hearing those words then laughed in a sneaky manner tilting his head up in the sky as he did so. Pamela and Wendy just stood there with baffled expressions.

'Guhahaahaa!! ....nice try....'

The announcer then spoke through one of the robo-copters again, his voice also being heard to everybody who was watching it over TV:

'And with that, all 4 contestants for the finale have been decided!

Now, for each of them listening over this, the final race will occur at 3:00 PM tomorrow. The final race will take place in a one-lap race on each course starting from Leaf Forest to the end of Mansion Madness. At the finish line of each course save for the final one, there will be specially-constructed robo-lift copters waiting for you to carry you safely to the start of the next course at top speed. And there's also a handicap for the final race. At the start of the race, you will be handed over a Item Counter, a small digital watch displaying the number 5 on it. When you pass through a item box, the number will decrease by 1. When you reach 0, you won't get any items anymore, so this is a pure test of skill and careful usage of your items. Please come to Leaf Forest at 3:00 PM for the final race, and as for spectators, the robo-copters will once again fly around to show the whole race.

Now, tonight's the Shinehill Valley Festival! Please enjoy yourselves there, and have a good night for the race tomorrow!'

And with that, the robo-copter then flew away.

Shinobin then just as quickly stepped off his board, tilted it up using his feet on the backside and then vanished under a thick smoke cloud.

Pamela and Wendy then decided it would be best to just head back for the hotel, and while on their way, were still amazed about Shinobin. They didn't even manage to get past him once, let alone hit him. It would seem that this time Shinobin has become practically unbeatable since Pamela barely defeated him back in that Japanese village. It would almost seem as if he's racing to win that prize money for something really important to him...

The rest of the gang also all witnessed the race live on TV, with at the boy's rooms, Rick sitting there with eyes widened, turning his head to Damien and Slash, muttering out with sweat coming from the back of his head: '...Wow...and we have to race him tomorrow, guys...' Both of them just nodded in agreement.


	11. Chapter 11: Night at the Festival!

As Pamela and Wendy returned to their room in the hotel, they talked up with the rest of the girls. 'Wow, that Shinobin guy was really fast and amazing there.' Nancy commented even with slight fright sounding in her voice. Even Linda and Nicole were impressed, seeing how much Shinobin apparently had improved since their last encounter, they not saying a word about it. Pamela then tried to cheer the others up. 'Come on, girls. Wendy and I did our best, wha else is there to it? Nothing much, really! All there is to it now is to see how the boys are going to do it tomorrow in the finale!' The rest of the girls smiled a bit as Pamela was right, it was no use to keep thinking about that ninja.

Wendy then added along: 'Is anybody here hungry? It's 19:00 PM and I'm quite hungry myself.' With that, all of the girls headed out of the room and through the hallway, also encountering the boys there who also just prepare to head down and go for some dinner, Tommy already running since he got hungry from watching the race.

As they all headed down the stairs and towards the fancy dinner room once more, they saw a whole wide arrangement of food from mashed potatoes to meatballs, spinach, baked eggs, roasted turkey and other stuff, all of the kids grabbing a plate and picking up whatever food they could eat, and sat around in a circle on a empty table. Slash and Jam were still talking with each other, Damien just focussing on eating the food since he didn't have any food for quite awhile, Tommy eated it with the speed of a hurricane much to Nancy and Rick's embarrasment, Wendy just eating calmly, Ruby eating apparently alot of spinach thinking it would stimulate his muscles more, and Pamela talking to Linda and Nicole about something:

'Oh, girls, I've got an idea Rick came up with earlier this evening.'

'What is it then?' Nicole asked her whilst taking a gulp from a glass of orange juice.

'Here.' Pamela pulled out one of the map books from her pocket and opened up a page of it, displaying the festival being planned around 20:00 PM. 'It's a evening festival all set up for the springtime celebration in Shinehill Valley, and there's alot of attractions, shops and game tents there, amongst them a shooting gallery, hammer whacking, riding cupcakes, a candy booth...' her face now turning to a sly smirk. 'and here's a slow river ride in a motor-propelled boat for 4 people at maximum to be in there. Apparently the ride there goes a bit away from the carnival down the river to enjoy the view of Shinehill Valley at night, and seems even the perfect moment for couples to be alone for awhile...'

Linda and Nicole immediatly caught on to what Pamela was suggesting with that statement, reminded of the bet they had to live up to this evening, both putting down their food and tried to squeal their way out of it.

'Eh, I can't come along, I have to take a shower and go to bed early from daddy...' Linda said a bit nervously.

'Yeah, same here...if I don't get my early sleep, I will get wrinkles...' Nicole added along.

'Now, now, you two. You both got yourself into this mess, and you have to face the consequences about it. Otherwise I will tell all of the boys that you didn't dare to live up to this.' Pamela told the girls with a frown on her face, both of them letting a deep sigh as they reluctantly agreed to it.

'Fine... but make sure nobody but you are with Slash and me in that ride, or it won't go through!' Linda demanded with a stern look on her face as she continued her food. Nicole also said that concerning with her and Tommy.

Pamela just giggled as Rick really had a good thing with that suggestion...

As soon as they were all done eating their dinner, the kids all headed upstairs to relax a bit on their rooms, taking a shower, and dress themselves up fancy for the festival Rick told the rest of the boys about, and Pamela and Wendy to the girls. Rick let Damien borrow for the rest of the evening some of his own clothes since Damien didn't bring along any of his own. Damien went to the bathroom to take a shower to wash himself, and 10 minutes later emerged instead of his usual yellow wintersuit with black jacket and boots now in black jeans, a brown shirt and a pair of nikes he was allowed to borrow from Jam. Jam dressed up in a white shirt with blue shorts and a black jacket hanging loose, Slash in a red jacket with black highlights, and light blue leather pants, also removing his trademark hairband to let it hang loose backwards still a bit spiky. Rick just putted on a blue sweater with a few black pants with white stripes on them, Ruby remained the same in his blue shirt and yellow shorts, and Tommy wore green pants with a yellow shirt and grey jacket.

After stepping out 50 minutes later in order to go to the festival, as they waited downstairs for the girls, they then saw the girls also dressed up in different attires. Nancy wore a pink shirt with yellow jeans along with a blue ribbon in her head, Linda was dressed in a red buttoned shirt, with blue pants with flowers embedded on it, though still wore her hair in two pigtails. Nicole wore a cyan shirt with brown pants, her hair still in the same style, though also wearing her fur coat when she usually goes outside, Wendy still showed up in her regular outfit not really caring that much for fashion statements, and Pamela wore a green buttoned shirt with blue shorts, the same she wears when she goes to school.

They all walked off into the direction of where this festival was supposed to be held, and after about 18 minutes of walking through various fancy streets and a open field, they came across a whole field filled with various tents, rides, platforms, and a few buildings, it being lightened up with neon lights on the outside.

'Ah, this must be that festival!' Slash remarked as the rest all anxious to try out various stuff walked in. They looked a bit around at what seemed to be a cotton candy store, a shooting gallery, and a toy store all populated with various people until they've reached a board which explained to them where they were, and decided to talk up where they would be going and where they would meet up...

'I wanna go to the shooting gallery! I want win some cool stuff to bring along home!' Slash said to Jam as they first looked at the sign. 'Don't count me to go along for the ride, bud!' Jam remarked to him. 'I want to go to that boat ride with Wendy, I've read it seems like a really relaxing ride, sounds good after all this tournament stuff today.'

'Huh? Well, suit yourself, I'm going for that shooting gal--' Slash was then interrupted by Rick, who seemed to convince Slash to come along to the ride.

'Oh, come on, Slash, a relaxing boat ride might just be the thing you need. After all, we're going to race against Shinobin tomorrow, and you can't win if your body's so stressed out!' Slash thought about Rick's suggestion for a moment.

'Hmmm, yeah, you're probably right, one ride might be just what I need to help me prepare for tomorrow!'

Rick winked a bit to Pamela, signaling he took the bait to come along for the boat ride for it's real reason...

Pamela then also added to it. 'Oh, Tommy, wouldn't you also like to come along? That boat ride really helps after a good meal.'

'Hmm... ok!' Tommy smiled. Pamela smirked towards Nicole, who looked a bit uneasy knowing the real reason wh she asked Tommy to come along.

'Hey, Wendy! Wanna come too?' Jam asked to her. 'Sure, love such a boat ride!' She replied.

Rick then thought this would be his chance to try and get a boat ride with Pamela as well, and get to know her better, but before he could act, he was tapped on the shoulders by Damien. 'Come on, Rick! There seems to be a can throwing booth over there with what seems to be free prizes to be won like some party bombs! You seem pretty good at throwing, don't ya?' He smirked to him. 'Bu-but I wanted to ask...' And just then, Nancy headed over to the direction of the tent and looked really interested at something she noticed in a store next to it, which caught Damien's eye, pulling Rick along. 'Come on!!'

And so, Rick, Damien and Nancy went to the can throwing booth nearby while Slash, Pamela, Linda, Nicole, Tommy, Wendy and Jam headed for the boat rides, Ruby tagging along the latter to see if there was anything of interest around them...

A building stood next to the can throwing booth, it apparently being a small toy store managed by a penguin. Damien pulled Rick along to go and throw some balls to a bunch of cans in order to win prizes, but Damien noticed Nancy walked in the store, and let Rick stand there near the booth while he himself went around a corner next to the store window and looked to Nancy, who seems be looking at something that caught her attention between the bunch of toys lying on display, a pink plush bunny. 'Oh, mister!' She shouted to him. Isn't that Mr. Floppy?' The penguin looked at her, and replied: 'Ah yes, indeed! There are very few of those plush bunny's left, it's a very old toy dating way back in 1950, and I had one of those toys given to me by my aunt. But you seem to be very much knowing about this kind of toy for somebody your age, little girl.'

Nancy nodded: 'Yeah, I read about it in a toy book my parents had, and I really like this plush bunny, is it for sale?'

'Sure, child! But it's a very rare thing, so I'm afraid I can't sell it for less than 1000 G.'

'Oh...' Nancy looked in her wallet to see how much allowance money she brought along, it only being about 100 G. in total.

The penguin saw her expression and tried to cheer her up. 'Can I possibly interest you in something else?'

Nancy just shaked her head and left the store. 'No thanks, but thanks for the offer.'

'Okay, but remember, I'm still open tomorrow until 20:00 PM.' She walked outside a bit dissapointed, but Damien quickly turned back to act as if he was just looking around.

'1000 G. for a stupid pink plush bunny? That's robbery of your money!!' He thought in himself, and went back to Rick, who was noticed by the booth owner. 'Ah, young man! Are you interested in throwing some balls? You can win free stuff like party bombs and candy with it, and the first 3 throws are free!'

Rick was a bit irritated Damien dragged him there just to win some party bombs from him when he could be going on a ride with Pamela instead, but the sound of free candy sounded nice to him, and decided to give it a shot. 'Sounds good to me, gimme those balls!'

Damien came back to Rick as he saw his first aim throw was a instant hit, and Rick got himself a bunch of party bombs where confetti rained out, handing it over to Damien. 'There, that's what you wanted, right?' 'Ah, yeah. Thanks for that!' Damien smirked as he thought about what kind of pranks he could pull with this.

Rick throwed another ball, but missed slightly this time, and right then, he saw Nancy approaching them with a sad look on her face. 'Hey, what's wrong, Nancy?'

'Oh, nothing, just saw something I wanted but it was kinda too expensive...' Rick saw she was in a sad mood and throwed his last ball and it hitted again, this time choosing some candy stick and handed it to her. 'Here, hopes this cheers you up a bit.'

Nancy smiled and accepted the candy Rick offered. 'Thanks!'

They then continued on to look around while Rick wasn't so much in his mind about Pamela anymore, they decided to ride a few other rides instead to enjoy themselves...

Meanwhile, the other kids were approaching the boat ride which wasn't occupied at the time. Ruby himself was called out by a voice in the distance, apparently some contest host.

'Good evening, mister! Are you interested to participate in our bodybuilder contest? You can win some nice cash with it.'

'I'M NOT AN A---er, actually yeah, I am interested!' He then runned off towards the platform...

'Well, here it is.' Pamela smirked to the others. The rest looked at the sign that stood near the platform where they found out each ride lasted about 10 minutes in which the boat would go off the river in the distance, and followed a route in where the sitters can enjoy a good view over Shinehill Valley before it would return to the platform. It was 1 boat at a time.

They then saw a boat approaching in the distance, it apparently having walls around the boat, a closeable door for privacy, and plated windows to see out of the boat for. It stopped in front of them, and a couple stepped out. The kids looked at the inside of the boat, it had 2 seats in the front and 2 in the back.

Nicole took a deep breath out of nervousness, and whispered to Pamela: 'I want to go first with Tommy, I want this to be over as quickly as possible.' Pamela briefly showed that she brought a photocamera along with her. 'OK, I'll make a photo of it as you requested!' She smirked a bit. 'Don't worry though, the rest won't see it, I'll show both of the pictures to you girls when we get back to our rooms.'

'Guys, mind if I sit in first?' Pamela asked already stepping in the boat sitting in front. 'Sure, fine with me.' Slash responded. Nicole then stepped in the back seat, trying to disguise her awkward look about it and turned her face to Tommy. 'Oh, Tommy, also care to come along?' Tommy just nodded and sat in the back with a bottle of root beer in hand next to Nicole. Slash then tried to step in as last, but Pamela stopped him in his tracks. 'Sorry, Slash, but I want to ride this alone, if you don't mind? I need the space to relax a bit.'

Slash scratched his head in question a bit, but took it in. 'OK, I'll go in the next ride.' Slash, Jam, Wendy and Linda watched by as the boat then left in the distance, Linda secretly smiling in herself at the pure thought of what was going to happen in the boat...

About 10 minutes later, the boat then returned, and right as it stopped, Nicole rushed out with a sick expression on her face, Wendy questioning what happened there. 'Is everything alright, Nicole? You look a little sick!' Nicole looked at Wendy, and replied back. 'Uggh...got boatsick...' She then hurried off towards the exit of the festival, the rest all wondering what was up with Nicole all of a sudden, and then Tommy stepped out of the boat, just smiling and with a happy look on his face.

Tommy, what's up with you? Enjoyed the ride that much?' Slash raised a eyebrow at him. Tommy just nodded with it. 'Yes, I really enjoyed it...' He stood there drinking his root beer apparently thinking in his head...

'Man, I gotta go on this ride if Tommy gets THAT exited from it!' Slash remarked before stepping in the boat sitting in the back passage, Pamela then signaled over to Linda through the window that it was her turn now, and Linda with a bit of a angry look decided to step in as well, and sat down next to Slash, much to his sudden chagrin. 'What are you doing here sitting down next to me, Linda?!' Linda snarked back: 'Well, sorry if I want to enjoy a ride in the boat to calm down from today as well, and Pamela decided she wants to go for another ride and she needs space!' Slash grumbled a bit, but accepted Linda's word. 'Hmph, okay then...'

And so the boat setted off for another ride while Jam, Wendy and Tommy waited for them to arrive back.

When the boat was out of their sight and on the river, Slash was actually enjoying the view, even if Linda was sitting there right next to him. It was a pleasant view as the sky night shined and the neon lights of the festival was bright over a part of the content.

Though all of a sudden, Linda sighed and tapped Slash on the shoulders. 'Hmm, what is it, Linda?' Slash said with a questioning look. Linda looked a bit down before she confessed to Slash:

'Well...look, Slash. Nicole and I made a bet last night that if she lost, she had to kiss Tommy, which she just did on the boat.' Slash laughed from hearing that. 'HAHAHA, so THAT'S why Tommy was so happy when he came out!' Though Linda slightly closed her eyes and looked down. 'But, she betted on me that if I lost...I had to kiss you...on the lips, and well, we both lost from you today!' Slash's face turned extremely sour from what he just heard, Pamela overhearing it all in the front. 'WHA-WHA-WHAT?!! KISSING EACH OTHER?! FORGET IT, LINDA!!' He turned his head away to the window, though Pamela tried to convince Slash into doing it. 'Come on, Slash, Nicole already lived up to her promise, and now it's Linda's turn. I had to photograph the evidence as well.' She pulled out her camera showing it. Though Slash, still upset, turned to Pamela and shouted: 'Too bad, I ain't gonna kiss that rich girl over here because of her stupid dares. It's her own fault, not mine!'

Though Linda then got furious over Slash's denial, not wanting to go off on Nicole like that, and she then grabbed Slash by his shirt, and shouted in anger: 'KAMEI, YOU ALREADY BEATED ME, I LOST FROM THIS STUPID BET AND NOW I HAVE TO LIVE IT UP, I DO NOT PLAN ON LOOKING LIKE A COWARD TO NICOLE! NOW YOU GOTTA SHOW YOU'RE NOT A COWARD AS WELL, AND KISS ME!' Even Linda couldn't believe what she just said, then letting loose of Slash calming down a bit. Him then responding slightly nervous knowing her anger. 'Okay, okay, I'll do it! Just gimme a moment to prepare myself...' Both of them then turned their heads around, both thinking about each other grumping over what they had to do while Pamela prepared her photocamera for the shot...

''Stupid Linda...why do I have to kiss her when it's all her own fault she lost? It's not fair!! ...though, she can be kinda friendly at times and she did offer us to come along on this trip...'

'Grr...me and my big mouth! Now I have to kiss that arrogant bragging jerk! ...but, he's not that big of a jerk at times, actually quite a good opponent to compete with and he looks kinda cute with that round nose...'

After a few seconds of hesitation, both turned their heads to each other, then gulped in awkwardness and closed their eyes, trying to think on something else, and moved their heads towards each other, and right on the moment their lips touched each other, Pamela took the picture from her seat, smirking a bit but staying quiet.

Though unlike what they first planned to do and immediatly move away when their lips touched each other, they remained in a kissing position for 6 seconds straight, both having a suprised expression on their faces and their thoughts mixed in a state where they couldn't decide wether they actually enjoyed kissing each other, or were too suprised to actually move away from each other...

Though they then moved their heads away from each other, and both looked towards the window on their side, staying quiet for quite some time, saying nothing to each other and heavily blushing. Though a few seconds later, they both with slight shaking movements moved their arms to each other, snuggling as they actually enjoyed their trip together while looking out the windows, but remained quiet to each other, looking at each other with blushing expressions one last time...

Though they then noticed they were approaching the platform again, seeing that Wendy, Jam and Tommy were coming into view, and quickly moved away from each other, Linda's blushing expression then dissapearing and stated: 'Never talk about this again with anybody!' Slash stood up and proclaimed: 'You bet I will.' Before they both stepped out along with Pamela, looking a bit grumpy. Jam asking: 'So, how did it go?' 'Meh, decently, Linda didn't bother me much there.' Slash mumbled to him. 'Ah, ok. Well, Wendy and I are going next!' Jam smiled as they then entered in the boat and fared off, as the rest looked at the boat, both Slash and Linda looking one more time at each other and quickly turning away a bit blushing for a few seconds.

After Jam and Wendy returned from their boat trip, the rest then leaved the boat trip attraction and then proceeded to visit a few more other places on the festival, about a hailf hour later coming across Rick, Nancy and Damien as they approached them while on their way to the exit.

'Ah, hey there, guys!' Rick yelled to the group standing near a shooting gallery.

'Hey, guys!' Pamela yelled in response waving to the three. As they came into view a bit closer, it was revealed Rick was carrying a unwell-looking Damien on his shoulders. 'What's up with Damien?' Slash asked pointing at him. 'Oh, we just rode the cupcakes attraction, and Damien wanted to stay in there a 2nd time, though that was when the extra-fast time ride kicked in, and well, it was too much for him!' Rick looked a bit awkward.

'Uwoooh...' Damien groaned as he still saw everything double in his eyes.

As they then prepared to leave, Jam noticed they were missing somebody. 'Hey, where's Ruby?'

'GOOD EVENING!!' They heard a voice shouting towards them, all looking in the direction and popped their eyes out as they saw Ruby approaching wearing a flashy white jacket with black pants. 'Whaddya think of my awesome look, huh?' Ruby striked some exhuberant poses. 'I won this awesome bodybuilder competetion and won this suit! Now I can REALLY show off my glorious muscles even more!!'

The rest all stood there with half-closed eyes in baffled expressions, before they all sighed and headed back to the hotel, noticing it was 21:00 PM on the tower clock. After all returning to the lobby of the hotel, on the way Damien feeling better and could walk again, and saying their goodbye's, they headed to their rooms, save for Rick who walked with Pamela to her room, chatting up a bit. 'Aw, too bad I wasn't there to witness how they kissed! If only Damien didn't go and drag me along on wanting to win some stuff' He sighed in dissapointment, Pamela tried to cheer him up: 'Hey, you didn't miss out that much, I got photographs of them, and besides, Linda and Nicole didn't want anybody else to witness it. Though I did wish you came along so we could have a boat trip together...' Rick then blushed a bit. 'Re-really?' 'Of course, you're a very friendly fellow and this was the perfect opportunity to get some funny photo's out of it!' They then arrived at the girls' room. 'Seeya Rick, good luck tomorrow at the race, but that Shinobin isn't a pushover, that's for sure!'

Rick shaked his head a bit. 'Yeah, I saw that on TV myself as well. Well, good night, Pamela!' Rick then headed back to the boy's room smiling a bit in himself as he then knew he was finally in good terms with Pamela for sure, heading to sleep on the sofa with a satisfying look on his face.


	12. Chapter 12: The Grand Finale

It was the grand day for Rick, Slash, and Damien. The kids all stood up after a good night rest at 11:00 PM, and spended the rest of the morning eating a good breakfast, and after talking a bit with each other and enjoying their own thing, decided to go train up a bit more on Practice Hills at 1:00 PM. It was a big race for them that was about to happen, all competing for the grand prize of 150.000 G., but they faced an incredibly tough challenge: Facing a seemingly-unbeatable ninja with limited items. Because of that, they practied for about a whole hour, before they then decided to head for Leaf Forest around 2:30 PM, with their friends promising them to watch the whole thing on TV.

As Rick, Slash and Damien walked towards it, all 3 with their boards in hand, they had one talk about their skills and expectations with each other. Damien and Slash were boasting against each other. 'Well, Slash...this is it, my grand time to shine! I've worked too hard for this to lose now! I'll show you and the rest, I WILL win this and get that 150.000 G. prize, hehehahaaha!!' Damien laughed in his own satisfaction.

'Forget it, Damien! I beated you before all the time and I'll win it this time as well, both from you and Shinobin!' Slash grinned back to Damien, reminding him of the times he bested him at Ice Land and Dizzy Land.

'Why you--' Though their arguing was then interrupted by Rick who was shouting to them in a display of seriousness.

'GUYS! LOOK AT YOURSELVES!' Slash and Damien then both turned their heads towards Rick, looking with a serious face towards them. 'We're about to race against a incredibly good ninja as our 4th opponent, and all you think about is how you're going to defeat each other?'

'Well, sorry, Rick!' Damien responded back slightly irritated. 'But how do you think you're going to beat him?'

'I'm not thinking about how I'm going to defeat him. I'm just going to that race to do my best. That has been my motivation from the start. The money doesn't concern me, nor the thoughts of how I'm going to win 1st place, all I'm thinking about is that I'm going to do my best and show my snowboarding skills to you and the others.'

Both Slash and Damien were suprised by Rick's little speech there, and agreed to not argue anymore and focus on the race now as well, Slash responding to Rick: 'I understand what you mean, Rick. I'm still planning to win, but I hope you'll do your best, and so will I!' Damien also agreed, though not as much willingly to admit it. 'Hmph, suit yourself. I'm going for first, and that ninja ain't gonna stop me!' Rick smiled as the boys were now finally at peace with each other for now.

They then approached Leaf Forest once more. Rick felt he had the advantage here slightly because he was the only one out of the contestants for the finale to have raced on this track before. As they were all greeted once more by the men belonging to the security of the tournament, they were then given their item counters, all set to the digit 5. They all knew the race was about to begin in 5 minutes, so they were waiting for him to arrive...

And just as they thought, a cloud of white smoke emerged from the ground nearby the starting line, and faded away revealing it to be Shinobin, standing ready with his Alpine-shaped Kunai Board in his arm, looking at the 3 other racers, and holded a little speech which was a first to them coming from him:

'...So, it has finally come to this...the time that we will see who will get away with 150.000 G....I have waited a long time for this, and I promise all 3 of you....I do NOT intent on losing today!!' His eyes glimmered red as he made his statement, a brief chill overrunning Slash, Damien and Rick, and dropped his board, standing still on it with his arms folded in a crossed position. Even one of the security men went over to him and with shaking arms handed over a counter before running away just as quickly.

The rest also stood ready on their boards in a jumping position all focussing on the timing of the word 'go', but before that would happen, one of the robo-copters arrived on the spot with a speaker installed, having a little speech as well:

'Ok, gentlemen! This is it! The grand finale! I hope you have prepared yourself well for this big event, because it's gonna be one hectic, long race! If you have all watched the races of yesterday, you should have a good idea of the courses. This will be a battle of skill, item planning, and speed to the finish in Madness Mansion, where the champion will be awarded with the glorious 150.000 G. prize! So, without further ado, I wish you all good luck, and may the best racer win! Are you ready....GO!'

And right as he said that, all 4 of them jumped forward. They were going at great velocity down the hill, avoiding any blue boxes until it was nessecary, but soon after a few turns they took the sharp right turn which they all navigated with ease, though Shinobin apparently took it the fastest, and was in first place, Rick with his Free Style control advantage soon gained a barely 2nd place lead not trailing behind far after Shinobin...

After a few seconds they arrived at the place where the tree's acted as obstacles, though Slash managed to weave around it fairly well, with Rick following thereafter with Damien in 4th place, slightly disgruntled about it. Shinobin though had no problem navigating the tree's and soon approached a red box and was heading towards it. His first set of items were bombs, something that could work to his advantage, but had to lean back in order to utilize it. Rick got himself a bunch of slapsticks, Damien a set of parachutes and Slash got ice shots, all got their counters decreasing a number to 4. After a few more turns still with Shinobin in the lead, they soon arrived at the river part with a stunting slope.

Shinobin pulled off a amazing triple diagional flip, landing and continuing on. Though oddly, all 3 of the other boys didn't do any stunts, and jumped off before the slope and landing on the steep hill after the slope in order to gain more speed, and as such, gained less ditance between them and Shinobin, Rick still being the closest to him still focussing on turning the weaving left and right turns.

Shinobin caught on there was no real battle going on between the other boys, which alerted him to stay focussed, as it was clear to him they realized how much of a dangerous foe he is and were all actually aiming for him.

As they soon approached another stunting slope, the one Rick boosted his way to victory with, Shinobin did no stunt, and simply jumped off it, waiting for one of them to throw something, and he was right: Rick apparently shot a slapstick to Shinobin's direction with the timing it would hit him upon landing, who then did a front point-jump at the ground jumping over it, but suddenly to his suprise, he found another shot was fired directly afterwards, passing under Rick as he was still jumping, and it was a ice shot, which immediatly froze Shinobin on the spot as he didn't see it coming. 'Uwgh!!' He shouted as it froze him, seeing that Rick and Slash then followed each other past him, before he broke out, and planned to quickly jump up and continue with revenge in mind, though Damien quickly intercepted him with a parachute, which also hitted him, and now was slowly descending downwards, Shinobin pushing himself downwards in order to reach the ground sooner, and could see that all 3 of them were near the finish line when he jumped forward, his eyes glimmering red intended on revenge...

Though Rick reached for the goal first and saw the robo-copter waiting for him, he then found he was frozen, with Slash smirking and shouting: 'Sorry, Rick, but the finish is mine!' And he then got grabbed by a Robo-Copter and dashed off, with Damien soon chasing after him a few seconds later just as Rick broke out, and got 2nd in a Robo-copter ride. Rick just jumped forward as he looked back seeing Shinobin approaching over the bridge, he then got in as 3rd to the next area, and Shinobin mere 6 seconds later as last towards it...

After 10 minutes of quick transport by a Robo-copter in the air slightly above the ground, Slash then reached his territory, River Rapids. Jumping off and grabbing a blue box as he stunted off for show on the first slope doing a horizontal flip, he got a ghost which he then decided to use on Damien to slow him down when he would get here as well, and continued down the water course...

Soon enough Damien also reached it, and on cue as he heard him entering the water, Slash used the ghost to try and slow him down, though found out that Damien also got a item to counter his ghost, a fan! Continuing on, Damien smirked as he soon would catch up to Slash, and prepared to fire off a parachute in his direction, when they would arrive at a sharp left turn before the ride would end...

In the meantime, Rick got in and as Slash and Damien were cruising halfway across the course on the water slide, and decided to use the steepness of the slope to his advantage in order to catch up to them, and saw a a blue item box. Grabbing it and getting a pan, this was his opportunity and he would wait for Shinobin to appear on the course mere few seconds after he entered the water ride, and deciding to use it, he threw it upwards and they all landed on all 3 racers, though they all soon recovered and went forward, Shinobin a bit sooner because he jumped himself back up using his feet solely, and the ninja kept increasing speed as fire burned in his eyes as the rest all navigated the rest of the track without any real trouble. Though from his box, he let out a sly smirk as he saw that the item he got was a triple ghost gang. Immediatly using it, all 3 of them slowed down as he started to gain ground on them once more...

Slash and Damien in the meantime were still nearly head-to-head even with ghosts surrounding them, though Rick was also approaching. Damien with a sly smirk fired off a parachute in Slash's direction as he jumped off the stunt slope towards the finish line on the ground with the holes in it, but just as Slash landed and was about to be hit, he then jumped up quickly and did a board grab, deflecting Damien's parachute and headed back up the slope were he just as he prepared to use the slope for extra speed again, then got hit by his own parachute, and raged as he descended. 'GRAAAGHH!!! I'LL GET YOU FOR THIS, SLASH!!!'

Slash just smirked and continued on, but just as he thought he could bolt in for another Robo-copter in first place whilst avoiding the pits, he noticed Rick snuck up on him totally unexpected, and fired off a slapstick towards Slash, hitting and rolling him near the pits, and Rick passed by, saying: 'Sorry, Slash, but I never forget to pay somebody back!' And then navigated the pits towards the next Robo-copter and lifted off in 1st place towards the direction of Slippy Slopeslide. Though just as Slash got up and attempted to regain speed, he then got shot by a bomb, and got lauched and landed in one of the pits, of which one of the Robo-copters went over to him and pulled him out, seeing that Shinobin was now in 2nd as he left off, and just saw that Damien passed near him and got near a Robo-copter in 3rd, Slash in anger attempting to hit him one more time with firing off a ice shot, but it missed Damien as he got lifted off in the nick of time, and taunted Slash. 'See ya at the finish, gahahahaha!!!!'

Slash grumbled and got in last as he then headed towards the 3rd course...

Now it was Slippy Slopeside after a rough 12-minute trip, and Rick jumped off continuing towards the snow fields, seeing his opportunity to replace his slapstick supply with going in a red box and getting a new set of snowman heads, and after awhile as he then heard Shinobin soon approaching thereafter, into a blue box before he jumped off the slope attempting to gain more speed and getting a invisibility item, but it was futile as Shinobin was already catching up to him as they would soon arrive at the cave parts. Shinobin shot a bomb in his direction right at the entrance after they weaved left and right a bit, but Rick avoided it by using his invisibility item, convinced that now Shinobin had no bombs left and looked forward, but to his suprise, Shinobin soon fired off his last bomb in Rick's direction on the timing of when he became visible again, and rolled off the ground towards the slope from the blast as he could hear Shinobin jumping off...

At that same time, Damien also went through the snow fields having raced before on the course and taking a sharp turn as possible, he then also restocked on weapons and items getting his count down to 1, getting from the red box a new set of ice shots, and from the blue box a ghost, which he immediatly decided to use on the one in lead, thinking it was Rick. Though just as he approached the caves part, he heard Slash coming closer, who also got 2 new items, his blue box one apparently being a rocket and boosted towards Damien, but didn't knew what his weapon one was. As they entered the caves, Damien looked back preparing to also jump-deflect Slash's projectile, but to his own suprise, Slash fired off his projetile towards the wall, which seemed to bounce off the cave walls, confusing Damien's timing, and tried to jump in time, but messed up and got launched upwards, discovering it was a tornado set he got.

Slash passed by Damien as he then stunted off the slope, and Damien stood up, angry that he now lost his weapons, and has only one item chance left, and jumped forward with all his might, determined to get back at Slash at all costs. He then also jumped forward off the stunting slope and landing near the ice part...

Rick in the meantime was already on the ice part, trying his best to catch up to Shinobin, but didn't have much success with turning the most sharpest corners, as he saw Shinobin also near the end of the ice part, but thankfully he was lucky as Shinobin got a ghost and he was now approaching him on even straight ground as they approached the next stunting slope over the lake, and fired all 3 snowman heads with timing towards Shinobin bouncing off the walls, but Shinobin saw such a thing coming already, and used his invisibility item, which he must have gotten from the same blue box Rick got his own invisibility item from, and evaded all 3 of them, then jumping off the slope and landing past the lake part, but unfortunately for Rick, he went way too fast, and then got hit by his own snowman heads, and went forward trapped under snow, and fell off the slope into the cold lake, before getting rescued by a Robo-copter setting him off at the part after the lake, his clothes were all wet, but he could see Slash passing him and going for the Robo-copter lift in 2nd place, Shinobin already having bolted for 1st by now, and jumped off to gain some speed, but noticed Damien also passed him, still upset at Slash, and went for the 3rd place in the lift.

Rick decided it would be impossible for him to win now anyway, and letted Damien pass without interrupting him as he was still on good speed. Rick managed after 6 seconds to come in 4th towards the last Robocopter and went on his way to the last course, wondering which of the boys would win...

Shinobin was smirking as after a 10-minute trip he arrived on the track he was familiar with, Madness Mansion, and the finish would soon be within his grasp, and the money... He jumped off immediatly and headed towards the hallway, on the way picking up his 4th item from a blue box, a mere rock, but kept it in order to drop it soon at a certain point, soon arriving at the dinner room...

Slash in the meantime soon also got in 2nd to the mansion, and continued steering as sharply as possible through the hallway, getting from the blue box as his sole item left to use a pan. He wanted to use it immediatly as he saw Shinobin in range just leaving the dinner room, but from experience with racing him before suspected he might hold a invisibility item just for that occasion, and decided to keep it for later would it be that there would be another pan opportunity...

As Damien soon also came to the mansion in 3rd, he went down the hallway and got for his own last item a fan, deciding to use it right away and got to the dinner room where he could see Slash also just leaving, and wanted to catch up to him... Rick soon followed in, getting for his own last blue box item a rocket, and also used it right away as he passed the hallway in quick speed and with good navigation skills made it past the dinner room obstacles without hitting anything, and soon saw Damien as he approached him in the next hallway...

'Hey, Damien! You got any items left?' Rick said with friendlyness as they raced down the hallway. 'No! I don't have anything left, smarty!' He shouted in slight irritation. Rick just yelled back: 'Me neither, used a fan to get this close to you, and Shinobin is in lead!' Damien then shock a bit right before they approached the ball room. 'What? That ninja dude's going to be in 1st place?!' Rick shook his head. 'I'm afraid so...unless we can trick him!'

They then navigated the ball room part, and together talked up something... After they arrived in the next hallway, Rick pushed Damien forward a bit going faster than him. 'Remember, as soon as you get to the staircase, shout it out loud immediatly!'

Meanwhile, Shinobin dropped the rock he got as his 4th item near the staircase, and hoped Slash would trip over it and roll downwards so his victory would be ensured, and turned the sharp U-turn towards the backyard with gtting from a nearby blue item box his last item, it being an invisibility item, now smirking as this would ensure his victory completely! Though Slash soon saw the rock as right after Shinobin left for the backyard, and jumped over it landing on the staircase using it's steep trajectory to go forward with some good speed to it, despite the rocking rumbling of the stairs, and managed to turn the sharp U-turn without losing any speed as well. Though he prepared to use the pan, thinking Shinobin used his last item being the rock, he then heard Damien also coming through the staircase part, jumping over it and yelling: 'I GOT A PAN HERE AND GOING TO USE IT ON YOU, SLASH!!!' Slash being mildly confused as Damien could have impossibly catched up this far without a boost item, so he couldn't have gotten a pan at all as a last item, though he then noticed something happening near Shinobin...

The ninja heard the demon kid shouting it, and thinking it was pan time, used the invisibility item as he steered to the right to the pond preparing to jump the last slope over the pond before the finish, but to his suprise, found no pans being dropped at all, and was tricked! Though just as he appeared visible, a pan then appeared for real just as he jumped off the pond, and got hit, falling in the pond, and then got lifted back up to the track past the pond just before the finish, but found that Slash already jumped over him and was nearing the finish line, steering past the bushes, and attempted in vain to get in 1st place, but to his ultimate dissapointment, found that Slash then hitted the left sharp turn sooner than him, and finished in first at the entrance of the mansion, the ninja himself crossing in 2nd place, just standing still, while Slash cheered out of joy!

After Damien crossed 3rd and Rick soon 4th, himself having hit the rock near the staircase and tumbled down after all, the announcer then shouted from a megaphone standing nearby:

'AND THE CHAMPION OF THE FROST ENTERTAINMENT ENTERPRISES TOURNAMENT IS... SLASH KAMEI!!!!'

'WOHHOOO!!!! YEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!' Slash was in complete utter joy as he now finally won the tournament and got himself 150.000 G. earned.

Damien just grunted over losing this much cash to his rival, but at least he was glad that creepy ninja didn't win thanks to his trickery he planned with Rick, which by a stroke of luck worked well, and Rick just cheered for Slash, not really caring about the whole tournament money.

Until they then heard shouting from the street as they were approached by the rest of the gang, all of them having witnessed the finish. 'Hey, guys! What are you doing here?' Slash shouted to them.

Jam ran forward, yelling in return: 'We came to see the finish of this race with our own eyes, dude! No way would I miss out on seeing that!'

'Hahaha! Just in time, guys! I won 150.000 G.!!!'

Though as the rest all approached Slash, they suddenly turned around to see something that baffled all of them...

'NOOOO!!!! AND I WAS SO CLOSE, SO CLOSE!!!! THIS CAN'T BE, THIS SIMPLY CAN'T BE!!!'

They all saw that Shinobin, a ninja once appearing as ever so calm, silent and cold, was now kneeling on the ground, having removed his hood revealing his face, and was even crying deeply, apparently really sad.

Though they were then approached by a man, who seemed to be the founder of Frost Entertainment Enterprises, Mr. Frost himself. He first went over to Slash, and handed over to him a big sum of money. 'Congratulations, Slash Kamei, you have won the tournament! As the grand winner, here's your reward!' Slash got excited over getting the whole sum of 150,000 G. 'Heheheheh, thanks, mister!'

He then approached Shinobin. 'Here you go, young man! 50.000 G. specially for the 2nd place winner!' Shinobin looked up and still extremely sad, accepted the money, muttering: 'But that's not enough....'

'Here's the thrid prize for you, kid! 1000 G!' Mr. Frost handed it over to Damien, who smiled slightly at at least getting some cash out of it all.

'And lastly, some 500 G. for last place finisher. You putted up a good show, kid!' Handing over the measly 500 G. to Rick. 'Oh, thanks for the money, mister!' Rick said friendly, not being sad at all over the results.

'Now, if you excuse me, I have to get to another meeting, it was a fine tournament, let me say that! Have a good day!' And with that, Mr. Frost stepped in a nearby limousine and drived off as the rest of the tournament organization also left, it now officially being over.

Though the rest then all looked towards Shinobin, who was still crying over the loss, Slash approaching him close. 'Hey, what's the matter with you?'

The ninja stood up and looked angry. 'Back off! You don't understand what this is all about! Why would you show mercy with me?!'

'Brother, enough of this!!' The rest all looked towards a nearby tree as Kaede then jumped out of it, approaching Shinobin with a serious look on her face.

'There's no need to play all this up anymore. They deserve to know what we're racing for, especially after they won!'

'...You're right, sister..'

And then Shinobin stood up and explained to them that he was competing and racing with them all along in order to get the cash sum of 100.000 G. in order to pay off the debt their ninja clan's school owed another clan for quite some time.

'And now there's only one more week remaining until the school will be forced to close... and I failed to get enough cash...' The ninja then looked down all dissapointed and still sad, but suddenly got tapped on the shoulder by Slash, looking up to see that he took out some of the money and offered it to him.

'Hey, you need 50.000 G. more in order to pay it off, right?' He friendly asked.

Shinobin was all suprised by this act of friendlyness towards him, after all the ruthlessness he displayed to them. 'Wha-what, you're offering me the rest of your prize money? But I didn't even win it rightfully, I don't deserve it!'

'What are you talking about?! You race in order to get money together to save your school from closing. That alone is already a reason enough to earn the money, wether you won it fairly or not, I don't care!

Shinobin was still reluctant in accepting it. 'But, but...'

'Shino, just take it. You don't need to put up this act anymore, these friendly people are trying to help our cause, and we should accept it!' Kaede convinced him.

For the first time in a long while, the ninja then smiled, wiped off his tears and accepted the money, putting the grand total of 100.000 G. in his suit. 'Thanks, I really appreciate this!' He sounded friendly towards the rest at last. Slash smiled back. 'No problem, dude! It must be a bit pricey to have come here, so please accept this as well.' Slash then handed over 10.000 of his cash prize to Kaede, adding to it: 'This is my own personal share of the reward for you two. You're very good boarders and I hope to race both of you again soon sometime!'

Kaede jumped with excitement. 'Yay, now I can finally purchase that dress from that store!' Shinobin looked a bit frowning back to her, stating: 'Don't think about spending money so soon, sis! We've got to get home first!' He then putted back on his hood disguising his face under the cold appearence once more, but now shaked hands with Slash. '...If you would excuse us, we've gotta go now! See you later...friends!'

And with that, both of them disappeared in white smoke.

Rick just stated smiling a bit. 'Well, seems like they're not so bad after all!'

The rest then headed back to the hotel, as it was 16:00 PM by now and spended the rest of the afternoon doing their own things before evening would kick in...


	13. Chapter 13: Last Evening Antics

'Hey, Damien, have you seen Rick anywhere?' Jam asked the demon kid as they were the only ones on their room enjoying themselves with their own things until dinner time would kick in around a half hour later at 18:30 PM.

'Nope, haven't seen glassy boy anywhere.' Damien said as he then went back on playing on the game console, trying to enjoy himself after losing the tournament.

Then right at that time, Rick came in the room smirking a bit as he apparently brought along with him a neat tuxedo suit his size. Jam looked at him and pointed at the suit: 'Hey Rick, how'd you get that suit?' Rick smiled and explained. 'Looks fancy, doesn't it? I bought it from the 500G prize I earned, and I plan to ask Pamela out on a date tonight!' Jam was a bit baffled at what Rick said. 'Huh, you like Pamela?' Rick looked a bit down. 'Yes, I do... I've had a few times to get to know her better and spend some time with her, but I never had the chance to spend some real private time together...' Then he looked back up with confidence. 'But tonight's our last night here, and I'm going for it! I'm gonna put on this tuxedo, walk out there, and ask her out for a date!'

Jam smirked a bit having to laugh a bit about Rick's confidence, but he knew what he was talking about with having a crush on somebody since he also liked Wendy himself, and gave a thumbs-up to him, telling him: 'You go, loverboy, heheheh!' Damien just shrugged and went back to playing his game.

After Rick emerged from the bathroom having took a shower and putted on the tuxedo, he looked all fancy and ready to take big steps and ask the girl he liked so much out for a date, exiting the room and heading downstairs, from what he've heard while asking one of the servants around the hotel, Pamela was with Linda and Nicole in the ball room downstairs. He walked down the hallway to the lobby, looking on a sign where the ball room apparently would be, until suddenly...

'Whoa!!' A nearby waiter penguin then tripped over the floor in clumsiness and dropped from his plate a bottle of root beer, falling on the ground nearby Rick and it shattered, the root beer splashing all over the floor and over Rick's costume, now all wet. Rick just stood there all baffled for a few seconds, before looking down on the ground in dissapointment.

'Oh, I'm SO sorry, good sir! Is everything alright?' The penguin waiter apologized to him. Rick nodded a bit, though still looking down. 'Yeah...I'm alright...' The waiter then runned off to get another root beer, but Rick walked a bit towards a chair with a nearby table, and was now completely devastated, his chance at asking Pamela out for a date ruined by a root beer bottle, and groaned with sadness on the table...

Meanwhile, in the ball room where Linda and Nicole were sitting enjoying a drink, Pamela then approached them handing over 2 pictures to both of them, it being the kissing pictures she made in the boat, both looking with sour expressions towards the photo's while Pamela enjoyed the look on their faces. 'Hey, it's a really unique picture, girls, that's for sure!' She giggled a bit. 'I've gotta go fresh up a bit in my room before dinner in about a half hour.' And so, Pamela left for the girls' room, and when she was away, Nicole and Linda were both looking incredibly annoyed at each other.

'Grr...that Pamela! She got us twice on our bets and pulled it in our faces!' Nicole said while looking with a grunting expression at the picture of Tommy and her kissing each other. 'Same here, we've gotta get back at her somehow...' Linda agreed while looking at the picture of her and Slash kissing each other as well. 'Oh well, we better go back to our room and fresh up ourselves as well...then we can think up of something to pay Pamela back!' Nicole expressed and Linda agreed, walking out of the ball room.

Though on their way to their room, they noticed Rick sitting near a table all dissapointed, wearing a soaked tuxedo. Curious as to what was up with Rick wearing that, they walked over to him. 'Hey, Rick. What's wrong? And why are you wearing that wet tuxedo? It smells like root beer!' Linda questioned while waving a hand near her nose.

Rick looked up still looking sad, decided to tell them what was troubling him since he didn't seem to care about trying to fix it up in time anymore. 'Ugh.... I tried to ask Pamela out for a date, but on my way looking for her, some waiter tripped and spilled root beer all over my tuxedo on which I spended the 500 G. prize from the tournament on...*sigh* but that's all ruined now. How can I ask her out looking like this?!'

Linda and Nicole felt sorry for Rick, but they then suddenly got an idea and smirked to each other, whispering some stuff to each other, before agreeing to their plan and setting up Pamela on something to get back at her for the whole kiss bet thing. Nicole runned off to the the receptionist to ask him something, and Linda then smiled to Rick, trying to cheer him up. 'Oh, come on, Rick! I know how to help you out!' Rick then looking up to her. 'Really?'

'Yeah, I'll get you a new suit in no time, as for the rest, just take a shower and wait on your room until it arrives!' Linda responded as she then hurried off towards the girls' room.

And so after awhile after Rick took a new shower on his room, and waited as Linda instructed him to do, he heard knocking on the door, and opened up being dressed in his pyjama's in the meantime, finding it was one of Linda's servants holding another tuxedo in his hands. 'Miss Linda asked me to deliver this to you.' Rick smiled and accepted it. 'Thanks alot, sir!' Though the servant then added: 'Oh, and she also requested you to meet Miss Couch downstairs at the lobby.' Before he walked away.

Rick wondered why Nicole wanted to speak him, but he didn't have time for thinking, and just putted on the suit again and went downstairs...

*About 10 minutes later*

'Oh, come on, Pamela! We really mean it!' Linda told Pamela as she guided him to a room somewhere.

'Really? Well, that's friendly of you to do...' Pamela questioned a bit suspicious of her sudden friendlyness.

'Of course, Nicole and I are really sorry for arguing so much with each other and putting up those childish bets, so we wanted to thank you for teaching us how wrong we are!' Linda said to her as they then arrived at a special room on the 2nd floor. 'Here it is, the special dinner room. You get to sit here for about 30 minutes and will be served with whatever you ask for food!' Linda explained.

Pamela walked in the room, dressed in a fancy blue dress as Linda requested her to do, it apparently being some kind of requirement in order to get to dinner in such a room, but found that there was nobody else in the room, save for Rick, sitting next to a table apparently reserved for 2, and with candles set up.

Then the door suddenly closed, and Linda smirked behind it. 'Oh, and I forgot, it's required to sit here for 30 minutes! Please enjoy your romantic dinner, ahahaha!' She laughed bit a sneaky snobbish laugh as she walked away, greeting Nicole on her way. 'And, did she fell for it?'

Linda grinned to her as they walked towards the dinner room. 'Yes, she did! Now let's see how she enjoys a set-up date!' Both laughing in satisfaction.

'Hey, let me out of here!' Pamela shouted towards the door, trying to open it, but to no avail and no response coming behind it, realizing she got set up on something. She sighed and walked towards Rick, who friendly greeted her, a bit suprised to see her. 'Oh, hey there, Pamela! Didn't expect you to come here!'

She then raised a eyebrow in curiosity. 'Huh? You didn't know about this, Rick? Linda told me to come here in order to have a special dinner treatment as a way of showing how much she and Nicole wanted to make up for being so childish.'

'Odd... Nicole told me I would get special dinner treatment as well, but said I would get another guest for it and just stay here.' Both of them then realized they've been set up on a forced dinner together. Rick blushed a bit from the idea of it, but didn't seem to have any objections against it.

'Well, since we're here for 30 minutes anyway, we might make the best out of it...' What do you want, Pamela?' Rick questioned looking at the menu. ' I think I'm going for spaghetti, I like that kind of italian food.' Rick smirked a bit. 'Heh, what a coincidence, I like that food too. Really hits the spot.'

What first went from a normal dinner, soon became a pleasant conversation between Rick and Pamela, as they then talked about the movies she made.

'Last Battlestar Fighter was my favourite movie, you played that role of space pirate so convincingly great!' Rick complimented her on it, her giggling a bit in return. 'Heheh, yeah, that sure took some time to perfect it. It had a pretty good plot, written by somebody called Lilene Pellegrino.'

'Lilene Pellegrino?' Rick suddenly look suprised. 'That's my mother! She told me she took up a job as scriptwriter recently.'

'Wow, what a funny coincidence!' Pamela exclaimed.

Though right then as they were done eating, the door then opened up again for them, and Pamela was about to stand up and leave, but Rick intercepted her. 'Eh, wait Pamela!' She turned around. 'Hmm, what is it, Rick?'

Rick looked down to the ground slightly nervous and blushing deeply. 'Well, I've never had the chance to tell you for some time, but...I really like you, and think you look very beautiful. I actually bought this outfit to ask you out for a date.' Rick confessed, still looking down blushing deeply, but then he felt that Pamela touched his shoulders, him looking up a bit, and suddenly felt that she kissed him on the lips, before she walked out and told him: 'And I think you look really nice in that outfit as well, Rick.'

Rick stood there, all amazed and like a statue at what happened, before 10 seconds later he blushed madly, and walked off towards the dinner room to see the others...

Meanwhile, at the dining room, the rest of the gang was all chatting up eating dinner, with Nicole and Linda telling Wendy and Nancy what they just did with Pamela, Nancy shrugging her head a bit in disbelief, and Slash and Jam talking with each other about the prize money, Tommy enjoying the food and Ruby still being extremely proud of his flamboyant costume.

Nancy then asked herself: 'Hey, where's Damien?'

At that same time, Damien was taking a walk around Shinehill Valley's streets, looking at his 1000. G. prize he got in 3rd place, and pondered what he should do it with at a time like 19:40 PM....

'Grr...if only I won that tournament...then I could go home with 150.000 G. and spend it all on building a new mecha! But here I am now with 1000 G., not even enough for another scheme... oh well, that can wait for another day. Let's see if there's some good restaurant around here to squander the money on some good food. No way am I gonna eat that spinach again with Nancy and the others!'

Though suddenly his mind drifted back on last night when he mentioned Nancy's name, then looking at the money again. After standing still for a few seconds, he then came to a decision and runned off in the direction of the still-open carnival...

Back at the hotel, it was 20:30 PM now, and while the other girls were off to take a small walk around town before they would go to sleep, Nancy wanted to get some sleep early on, and left for their room, while on her way, she then noticed a hotel servant walking away from their room, and noticing her, he then told her something. 'Oh, miss Nancy is it?' 'Yeah, that's me.'

'I just delivered something from somebody for you to your room on request, he told me it was very important for you.' He then walked off, Nancy wondering what he meant with that and opened up the door to her room and to her suprise, when she went to her bed, she found Mr. Floppy lying on it, with a note lying next to it. Opening it up, she then read:

'There, I got you your stupid bunny. You better appreciate it because it costed me my whole prize money!'

Nancy then thought about it for afew seconds, before realizing something and runned off somewhere...

Meanwhile, Damien was sitting on the room all alone eating some leftovers from the dinner room on the sofa, watching a action movie, a bit grumping from the food taste, until he heard knocking on the door. 'It's open!!' He shouted mildly annoyed. Though just then, Nancy walked in very happy and went over to Damien, who seemed to cheer up a bit when he saw she was it. 'Ah, hey there, Nan---huh?!'

To his suprise, Nancy suddenly hugged him, telling him with a very joyful expression: 'Thank you so much for Mr. Floppy, Damien! I appreciate it very much!' She then gave him a cheeksmooch before leaving the room. 'Good night, Damien!'

Looking at the door with wide eyes, he then turned off the TV and went to bed, crawling under the sheets as he fell asleep with a satisfying grin on his face. 'Looks like I spended the money wisely after all!'


	14. Chapter 14: Epilogue Ending

As morning dawn broke over Shinehill Valley, Slash and the others prepared to go home with Rick giving back Linda's Free Style board and getting back his own All Around board from Damien who told him it was a old board anyway, then had breakfast one more last time and all went in Linda's plane, except for Nicole who traveled back to her own home in Rockhigh City per helicopter, and as much as she hated to admit it, she actually kinda enjoyed the days with Linda, and said goodbye to each other for once in a friendly manner. And as they all traveled back a whole hour long to Snow Town, they catched a brief glimpse of Shinobin and Kaede apparently waving to them at the top of a mountain.

Ultimately they reached their old home of Snow Town again, and landed in Linda's Castle, her thanking the rest for a wonderful time over there and they all went home. Damien hurried off into the woods as quickly as possible, though Nancy wondering why he would run of so fast again before heading home with her new bunny plush toy, Tommy ate a burger on his way home to his father's restaurant. Wendy and Jam chatted up together a bit as they headed for home. Rick said to the rest he had a really great time and hopes to see them again tomorrow, especially Pamela, and Ruby just walked off still amazed over his outfit.

And Slash walked home with his own personal trophy of 90.000 G., fantasizing about what he would like to buy with all that money. Opening the door as he got home, he then greeted his mother.

'I'm home! Mom, Could you take me into town? There's something that I want!'

His mother looked around from the kitchen as she was preparing something.

'Slash! You just came home from a 3-day holiday during spring vacation, and upon returning you already want to go into town for something?'

She then noticed the large sum of cash he holded in his hand.

'Slash! Where'd you get all this money?!?' She shouted in a baffled expression, her son smirked with glee. 'Heheheh! I got it from the snowboarding competetion from where we went to! I got first place and won all this cash! Isn't that awesome, mom?'

Though unlike what he expected to hear, his mother then grabbed the sum of money out of his hands.

'Slash, you're still a kid, and kids can't go around carrying all this money. I'll keep it for you until you've grown older. I'll take this!'

Slash stood by competely baffled by his mother's action, and shouted in protest:

'Huh?! THAT'S NOT FAIR, MOM!!'


End file.
